


Three is a Crowd

by RocketKat123



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2018-10-01 18:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10196018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocketKat123/pseuds/RocketKat123
Summary: Danny despised his older half brother, Dan Masters. Danielle, Danny's twin sister, thought he was okay, and Jazz and their mother thought he was just troubled. Danny just couldn't understand how people didn't see he was pure evil, and the fact that Dan was the reason that he, Danny, and Danielle were now all half dead did not help Danny's feelings towards him at all.





	1. The Most Horrible Time of the Year

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! This AU is inspired by the lovely lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks on tumblr.

Danny hated Christmas. For one, people were ridiculously cheery during this holiday and the days preceding it for absolutely no good reason (Jesus wasn't even born in December!) other than it was cold and people needed something to make them feel not horrible. And two (this being the most prominent reason) he would have to deal with Vlad Masters, Affluent Magazine's billionaire of the year, and his stupid son, who also happened to be Danny's half brother, Daniil Masters.

Of course, if you called him by his full name you likely wouldn't see the light of another day, which was why most people knew him as Dan, Dan Masters. And the bane of Danny's existence.

Once upon a time Danny's mom, Maddie Fenton, had been married to someone other than his dad, Jack Fenton. His mother's first marriage had been to his parents' old college buddy, Vlad. It had ended in divorce just after their second year, but they had had a kid in that time, and now Danny had to deal with his jerky older half brother.

Danny hated his brother as much or possibly more than Christmas itself. He was, after all the major reason Danny despised the holiday in the first place. Of course Danny just had to suck it up and deal with it. And also maybe go and see his older sister, Jazz, for counseling later.

"Mom, do we have to invite Vlad and his kid this year?" Danny whined. Okay so maybe he wasn't really dealing with it.

Maddie turned from nailing up some last minute Christmas decorations in the living room. For once she wasn't wearing her teal hazmat suit. Danny's parents spent so much time working in their lab in the basement that they simply wore them around the house as well, but Danny didn't think his mother had even ventured into the lab yet. Since this morning, she had been going over last minute preparations. It seemed like she was stressing just as much as Danny.

She sent her son a disapproving look. "His kid is your older brother, and he loves you, Danny."

Danny couldn't help it. He burst out laughing right there. His laughter quickly petered out into nervous chuckles when he notice his mom sending him the stink eye. "I'm sorry, Mom, but I have to disagree with you on that."

With a sigh Maddie turned back to putting up a wreath. "I'm serious. Dan loves you, Jazz, and Danielle. He just has a hard time showing it. He's...troubled."

Danny snorted. "You got that right."

"If it makes you feel any better, you can invite your friends over if their families will allow them to come," Maddie said.

The announcement made Danny only feel slightly better. His friends probably could make it to the dinner on Christmas Eve, seeing as neither of their families celebrated Christmas, what with Sam being Jewish, and having already finished celebrating Hanukkah almost a week ago, and Tucker being Muslim. The bad thing was, he didn't know if he wanted to invite them. Danny wouldn't wish an evening with Vlad and Dan Masters on his worst enemy, much less his friends.

"Hey, I don't know what you're complaining about. Dan's cool," Danielle said from the living room couch. She didn't even bother to take her eyes off of the TV.

Danny turned to his twin sister with a thunderous scowl. "You're dead to me."

She briefly looked up from flipping through the channels and shrugged. "I can live with that."

"Hey, speaking of 'dead', we could show Vlad, Dan, and your friends the ghost portal!" Maddie suggested, looking much too excited for a person talking about death.

"Mom...no," Danny whined.

The Fenton Ghost Portal was supposed to be exactly what you would think it would be: a portal into the ghost world-or as Danny's parents called it, "the Ghost Zone". It was the continuation of a project they had started all the way back in college. After twenty years, Danny's parents finally thought they had successfully completed it, though they still had to test it out. It was completely ridiculous and like both his sisters, Danny didn't believe in ghosts.

"I gotta agree with Danny on this, mom," Danielle added.

"Thanks, sis," he said. "You're no longer deceased."

She gave a halfhearted 'yay' before going back to channel surfing.

Something suddenly struck Danny as unusual. "Hey, where's dad?" he asked. His dad was nowhere to be seen and it was nearly lunch time. It wasn't like Jack Fenton to skip a meal.  
The floor suddenly shook under his feet-likely from an explosion in the lab/basement, adequately answering Danny's question. The reason a loud bang didn't accompany the localized earthquake was that the basement had been soundproofed due to some neighbors voicing complaints of the sounds of construction during the middle of the night.

His mother gave a annoyed huff. "I'll go check on him. Why don't you finish putting up the decorations while I'm down there?"

"Sure thing, Mom," Danny said to her retreating form.

As soon as his mother had closed the basement door, he made his way for the front door.

"Hey, didn't you say you were going to put up the decorations?" Danielle said distractedly.

"Yeah, about that, I was hoping you'd do it for me," he said as he got his coat down from the rack.

His twin looked up from the TV with a raised eyebrow. "What the hell makes you think I'm going to do it?"

"Because I'll give you a dollar?" Danny said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bill.

"Sold!" She jumped off of the couch and grabbed the dollar out of her brother's hand in a flash.

"By the way, where are you going?" she asked, pocketing the bill.

"To go hang out with Sam and Tucker, but if they're busy, I guess I'll just drift around town like a hobo," he said with a shrug.

"Cool. I'll tell mom if she asks."

* * *

 

Danny visited Sam first.

When Danny knocked on the door of the Manson residents—which was a huge mansion because Sam was actually loaded—Pamela Manson, Sam's mom, answered the door. Once she saw who had knocked, the fake smile she had plastered on her face slipped a bit, but to her credit, stayed mostly intact.

"Oh, hello Danny. Samantha is in her room," she said.

"Thanks, Mrs. Manson," he said cheerfully and headed for the stairs.

Pounding drumbeats and screeching guitar riffs could be heard from all the way down the hall at the top of the stairs. As he got closer to his friend's room he could make out some of the words to the song. It sounded familiar. Maybe from the band Tool? Her mother must have pissed her off or something. She always listened to Tool (especially their first and second album) when she was angry.

He knocked on the door, hesitantly at first then a little louder when the first knock went unanswered. "Hey, Sam! Open up! It's me, Danny!"

She suddenly appeared in the doorway in all her gothic glory and pulled him in before he could even say hello.

"You know, you really need to get a phone," she said as she turned down her stereo. "If you had come only a few minutes earlier you might have walked in on me and my mom arguing."

"What was it about this time?"

She shook her head. "I don't remember. Something stupid probably. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's the holiday season and I need to stay positive."

"I wish I could have your attitude about the holidays," Danny grumbled as he sat down on the edge of her bed.

She gave him a sympathetic look. "Is Vlad and Dan coming over this year?"

"Yes, it's their year to visit. I guess I should be glad that we don't have to cram into the family RV and go all the way to their mansion in Wisconsin like last year, but, God, Dan and Vlad are unbearable in any place," he said, allowing himself to go limp and slump onto her bed, staring face up at the ceiling. "Anyway, I wanted to invite you and Tucker to come commiserate with me, but honestly, I wouldn't blame in the slightest if you said no."

"It's cool. I've never actually met your half brother, by the way," Sam said.

He sat up. "Oh, yeah I guess you haven't. Lucky."

"Hey, he can't be that bad if he's related to you," she said, taking up the chore of being the positive friend.

"Do you even hear yourself, Sam?" Danny said incredulously. "You say your mother is terrible all day long and she's related to you!"

"Hey, I'm not so sure about that. I've never actually seen my birth certificate," she said.  
Danny raised and eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Wow… Anyway, you wanna go hang somewhere with me? We'll get Tucker on the way," Danny said.

She answered with a simple "sure", and grabbed her bag and coat. After quickly putting on her winter wear, she led the way down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Sam's mother said, stopping her just before she could open the front door.

"We're going to the mall. Danny needs help with some last minute Christmas shopping," Sam lied smoothly. It often surprised Danny how easily she could lie to her parents. In fact, her lying sometimes even bordered on compulsive.

Pamela looked between them then nodded. "All right, but I want you back before sundown."  
"Sure thing, mom," Sam said before she went out the door, pulling Danny with her.

* * *

 

It wasn't too long of a walk to Tucker's house. Their town, Amity Park, Illinois, was pretty small, only having around fourteen-thousand inhabitants and extending out to about nine square miles surrounded by either sprawling farmland or patchy woods. Luck seemed to be on their side, seeing as the wind wasn't even blowing, making the thirty-degree temperature feel only about forty.

The moment Danny knocked on the door, Angela Foley, Tucker's wonderful mother, pulled Danny and Sam in. "It's freezing out there! Did you two walk all the way here?" she asked frowning at both of them.

Instead of trying to defend his and Sam's ability to tolerate cold weather, Danny said, "Can Tucker come with us to the mall? I have to do a little last minute Christmas shopping." So Sam says, he added in his head.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "I can drive you three there if you like."

Danny nodded and smiled gratefully. "That would be fine," he said. He glanced at Sam who gave a small smile as well. Knowing her and her hate of cars and all things bad for the environment, she'd probably prefer to walk. He silently thanked her for just going along with it.

Angela smiled brightly. "Alright then. I just took some cookies out of the oven. Help yourself before we go."

"Thanks, Angela," Danny said, his mouth already watering.

Angela Foley showed them the plate of still cooling cookies before going up to Tucker's room to tell him Danny and Sam were there. Not much later, Tucker came bounding down the stairs and joined His two friends in the kitchen.

"What up my peeps?" he said before picking up a cookie. Almost instantly he dropped it with a yelp. Sam snorted and almost choked on her cookie with laughter while Danny tried to look sympathetic while holding back laughter himself.

"Oops, sorry, I should have warned some of them were still really hot," Tucker's mom said as she entered the kitchen after her son.

"You guys could have warned me too you know," he said awkwardly with his burned tongue halfway hanging out of his mouth while he glared at his two so called friends.

"But what would be the fun in that?" Sam said jokingly.

"Here, Tucker," Danny said handing his friend a cookie. "The ones on this side of the plate are cooler."

"Thanks Danny. I guess I know who my real friend is," Tucker said glaring at the goth girl.

"Oh, hush Tucker, she didn't mean anything by it.” His mom lightly swatted his shoulder. "Now, you said you had to do some last minute shopping. We should probably get to that," she said to Danny.

"Oh, um, yeah," he stuttered.

Now that he was at Tucker's house, he wished they could stay and just hang out there, but he had propagated Sam's lie, and now he was going to have to stick to that story. And this was exactly why he didn't like lying.

"Come on, Tucker, we need to get to the mall before it gets too late," Danny said, cramming the last bit of cookie into his mouth.

They all piled into Angela's car and were there in only a few minutes.

"You can message me when you're ready to come home," Tucker's mom said, sticking her head out of the car window.

"Actually, we were planning to go to Danny's house after this," Sam said, springing another unknown plan on Danny. "It's only a few minutes walk from the mall."

Angela looked between them a little nervously. "Okay, just be careful."

"We will, Mom. Bye!" Tucker said, as his mom started to leave.

As they started to head for the front entrance of the mall, Tucker turned to Danny. "So what's this really about? I know you wouldn't be willingly going to the mall around this time of the year."

"Well, we have Sam to thank for that. She's the one that came up with the mall excuse," Danny said, giving Sam a halfhearted glare.

"Sorry, Danny," she said.

Danny shrugged. "It's okay. The real problem is Dan and Vlad Masters. They'll be here by tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd want to sacrifice an evening to come have dinner with me and my insane family."

"Oh, dude, sure I'll come have dinner with you, as long as you're not serving ham," Tucker said.

They went through the sliding doors, and were instantly hit with warm air.

"Don't worry. We're having turkey," Danny said, a he took off his thick winter coat and tied it around his waist.

"Hey, by the way, which do you think is worse?" Tucker asked. "Going all the way to Wisconsin or them coming here?"

"Them coming here," Danny answered almost instantly. He had time to think it over on his walk with Sam to Tucker's house, and he had decided that, yes, them coming to his house was worse. "For one, because they're encroaching on my territory—" Sam had to snort at that and mutter 'boys'—"And two, we only have one extra room so I have to share my room with Dan."

Tucker winced. "Sorry about that, man. That really sucks."

"Have you met Danny's half brother?" Sam asked curiously.

"Yeah, and he's an asshole," Tucker said.

"I think I'll just reserve my judgment for when I meet him myself," she said rather diplomatically.

"Trust me Sam, you'll come to the same conclusion we have," Danny said.

He finally got to take a look around the mall. "Oooh, boy," he muttered sourly. As if his mood wasn't bleak enough with the thought of having his half brother over.

The mall was of course, much worse than his house. Along with the obnoxious amount of decorations and too cheerful music playing loudly from the speakers in the mall's ceiling, there were tons of Christmas sale signs just pleading you to go into their store and partake in the traditional worship of capitalism.

As that string of thought crossed his mind, he realized he had been hanging out with Sam too much lately.

"This is terrible, honestly. I'm getting flash backs from that one Santa Clause encounter I had when I was five," Danny said flatly.

"Which one was that?" Tucker asked.

"The one where the reindeer tried to eat my hat."

Sam snickered, and Danny shot her a glare. "It's not funny! I wet myself!" he hissed, partially joking.

Still chuckling slightly, Sam said, "We didn't have to actually come to the mall, Danny. We could have just walked to your house after Mrs. Foley left. You do understand the meaning of a cover story, don't you?"

"Good friends don't let their friends lie to their parents," Danny said absently as he glared at the shiny bobbles hanging all over the place.

"The intention was still there. I'm still going to hell," Sam deadpanned.

"Can we all just take a trip there now? It can't be any worse than this," he said sourly.

Sam stopped walking, making the rest of the trio stop, and gave Danny a look. "We are absolutely free to leave anytime. The doors don't suddenly lock as soon as we enter."

"I have to at least buy something, Sam!" Danny said, throwing his hands up dramatically. "It's the principle of the thing!"

Sam and Tucker shared a look.

"Alright then, whose this 'last minute shopping' for?" Sam asked.

Danny shrugged. "Danielle, I guess. I probably owe her something for going to the mall without her."

"Hey, Danielle likes churros right?" Tucker said, hooking a thumb at a churro stand.

Danny gave him a flat look. "That's not really something I can give her for a present."

Danny paused at an accessory stand. There was a cheep black and white striped scarf hanging with a matching pair of gloves from one of the hooks. "How about this?"

"A scarf and gloves?" Sam said raising her eyebrow. "Kinda a lame gift don't you think?"

"Well, I figure it'll be better than the canary yellow mittens and pepto-bismol pink scarf our grandma knitted for her the last two years."

Sam made a face. "Fair enough."

* * *

 

Leaving the mall, plus the prospect of hanging out with his friends for a few hours, brightened Danny's mood considerably.

That all came crashing down when he saw another car in his driveway. He cursed under his breath.

"I thought you said they wouldn't be here until tomorrow," Tucker said. "Maybe it's not them."

"Who else could it be, Tucker?" Danny said. He sighed, a large puff of steam billowing out of his mouth. "Let's just get in there and try to avoid them as best we can."

That didn't quite work either, considering Dan was sprawled out leisurely on Danny's couch, his booted feet propped up on the coffee table as if he owned the place.

He turned and looked disinterestedly as they entered. "Hey, Danny and friends," he said flatly.

"I thought you guys weren't going to be here until tomorrow," Danny said, not even trying to keep the disgust out of his voice.

Dan shrugged. "Guess we just made good time," he said nonchalantly.

"Wonderful," Danny grumbled.

"You know, I would think you'd be happy to see you older brother. I mean, you only get to see me about once a year," Dan said with a martyred look.

"Where's your dad?" Danny asked, ignoring his older half sibling's first attempt to rile him.

"Down in the basement with Jack and Mom," Dan said nodding towards the basement door. "They're showing him some weird thing. The ghost portal, I think they called it."

"Oh, no," Danny groaned.

As if things weren't already bad enough, Danny's mom poked her head out of the basement door and said, "Hey, Danny, go get your sisters! I think we're ready to test the portal."

Danny's jaw dropped. We're they serious?! They were going to test their more than likely nonfunctional creation now? Right before Christmas? When everyone was here? And why was he asking these things when he already knew all the answers?

"You come down here too, Dan!" Maddie continued.

Shock was replaced with petty satisfaction, and Danny gave his older brother a smug smile. "Yeah, Dan lets all go down there an be one big happy family!" His words dripped with sarcasm.

Dan simply gave him the finger, to which Danny returned, still smiling smugly. "Just go get Jazz and Danielle," Dan sneered, turning to go down to the basement.

Danny childishly stuck his tongue out at Dan's retreating back. Once Dan was gone, Danny turned to his friends with an apologetic look. "You guys can go home if you want. This is probably going to be a disaster," he said rubbing his neck awkwardly.

Sam crossed her arms and popped out a hip."If there's any chance of seeing a real ghost, I am obligated to to stay."

"Yeah, and I guess I have nothing better to do," Tucker added.

Danny heaved a sigh. "Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."

He started to turn to go up to the stairs, but stopped and turned back to his friends. "Um, just...sit in the living room, I guess, while I go get Jazz and Danielle," he said a bit awkwardly, receiving nods from Sam and Tucker as they began to do as advised.

Danny climbed the stairs and went to his room first to drop off the present he had gotten Danielle from the mall. He then went to his twin's room and knocked loudly on her door, eliciting an annoyed "what" from the other side.

"Mom and Dad want you to come down to the lab. Their going to try to start up the portal," Danny said, pushing her door open.

Danielle groaned loudly. "But I don't wanna go! It's not going to work."

"Probably not, but we all have to go down there and suffer together like a family," he said authoritatively.

Danielle sighed dramatically and hopped off her bed. "Alright, fine, whatever," she grumbled as she passed Danny on the way out the door.

"That's the spirit, sis!" he said ruffling her hair. She pushed his hand away and shot him a halfhearted glare before passing him and continuing down the hall.

"One sister down, one to go," he muttered to himself as he made his way to Jazz's room.

He knocked on the door to his elder sister's room and then again when she didn't answer the first time. She still didn't answer, so Danny went in without invitation. He groaned when he realized why she hadn't answered: she was wearing her head phones, probably listing to some podcast or recorded lecture about some psychological condition while she was also reading something else.

"Jazz!" Danny practically yelled, finally getting her attention.

She pulled off her head phones with a frown. "What do you want, Danny? I'm studying."

He raised an eyebrow. "You do realize it's Christmas Break, right?"

"Yes, I do. What about it?" she deadpanned.

"You don't have to study when school is out. That's kind of the whole point of a break: to not study," Danny stressed.

Jazz sent him an exasperated look as she shut her book and put it aside. "You don't have to be in school to study, Danny. You should seek knowledge on your own, as well."

Danny rolled his eyes. His sister had to be the weirdest person alive. Then again, Danny did look up a lot of facts about outer space in his spare time. "Well, whatever. Stop studying. Mom and Dad want us all to go down to the lab. They're going to turn on the Ghost Portal."

Her expression mirrored his when he first heard the news then settled into exasperated acceptance. "You mean try and fail to turn on a portal to a nonexistent 'spirit realm'?" Jazz said using air quotes.

"Yeah basically, but I think the official term they're using for it now is 'the Ghost Zone'."

"Oh, great," Jazz said, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, I know, but we have to go be supportive, I guess," he said with a shrug.

"Not supportive," Jazz said, swinging her legs over the side of her bed. "Sympathetic when it fails, but not supportive. When this little endeavor come crashing down, they might actually give up on their insane obsession once and for all if we don't encourage any more of this behavior."

Danny narrowed his eyes at her. "You know, you'll likely either be the president or a mad scientist that invents a machine to control people's minds when you grow up."

"Politics aren't my thing," she stated cryptically, making Danny worry.

Jazz stood up from her bed and straightened out her shirt. "Come on they're probably waiting anxiously for us down there."

Sam and Ticker stood up from the couch when they spotted Danny and his sister coming down the stairs. Jazz made a face when she saw them.

"What are they doing here?" she asked Danny, sounding both embarrassed and ashamed.

Over hearing her question, Sam answered for Danny. "We're here because Danny asked us to commiserate with him, seeing as he was feeling stressed with his family coming over."

"Did you really say commiserate?" Jazz asked, turning to Danny.

"Yes, I think I used that exact word," he said.

"I'm impressed."

"Thanks."

"Anyway," Jazz said turning back to Sam and Tucker, "you should probably leave. Things are going to be massively uncomfortable after our parents new 'invention' fails. Or something horribly wrong is going to happen, and we'll either all die or be horribly maimed. You don't need to deal with that."

"It's cool. Danny already warned us. We get it," Tucker said nonchalantly.

"And I'd never pass up a chance to die," Sam said, probably only half joking.

Jazz shrugged and turned to go to the basement. "Suit yourself," she said over her shoulder.

Danny, Sam, Tucker followed Jazz down the basement steps. The basement of the average person was likely full of boxes with old items no one wanted or needed to display around their house stored inside. Some people might even have a pool table or table tennis set in their basement. Danny, on the other hand, had a mad science lab in his.

Harsh fluorescent light beat down from the ceiling to illuminate the two rows of tables full of the junk his parents called inventions. At the back of the room sat a dinosaur of a computer with a forest of wires coming out of it.

And of course, let's not forget the giant gaping hole in the wall.

This was supposed to be the Fenton Ghost Portal. Right now it was just a hole in the back wall of the basement, but when Danny's parents started it up it would be a hole in the fabric of reality itself—or at least that was what his parents told him.

"There you are! I was about to go back up there and get you," Danielle said, leaving Dan's side to confront her twin.

"Hey, Sam, Tucker," she added, noticing her and Danny's two mutual friends. They both replied with waves and mumbled greetings.

"Blame Jazz for the delay," Danny said, jabbing a thumb towards his older sister, who shot him an annoyed look.

Danny's dad spotted the group of teens and walked up to them. "Hey, Danno why don't you go say hello to Vladie before we get this thing started."

"Sure thing, dad," Danny said unenthusiastically.

Danny broke off of his group of friends and his two sisters. He of course had to shoot Dan a glare as he passed him.

Vlad Masters was standing uncomfortably close to Danny's mother by the afore mentioned Jurassic era computer, apparently looking at some data.

"Hey, Uncle Vlad," Danny said with faked enthusiasm. His mother visibly relaxed when Vlad's attention shifted from her.

"Daniel, how nice to finally see you. It was unfortunate that you had just run off when we got here," Vlad said, perfectly polite and charming. Danny knew for a fact that underneath that perfectly preserved facade of niceties, was a grade-A asshole.

"Yeah, well, I didn't know you were coming or I would have stayed," Danny said. It was probably a lie, but whatever.

"I see. Perhaps I should have called ahead," Vlad said.

Yeah, a little heads up would have been nice, Danny thought.

"Alright let's get this show on the road!" Danny's father said going up to the panel next to the portal.

"You should probably go back to your friends. You wouldn't want to be too close to the machine when it starts up, what with your father's craftsmanship," Vlad said.

Danny pointedly ignored the passive aggressive dig on his dad and went back to his friends. Of course, not without shooting Dan another glare as he passed him.

"Run the start up sequences, Mads," Jack said.

Danny's mother tapped on the computer a few times then looked up from the screen and said.

"All systems are a go. Flip the switch!"

Danny's father proudly did as told, flipping the lever in the open panel next to the machine.  
The tale tell whirring of machinery starting up could be heard from the portal. The Fenton siblings (especially Jazz) still weren't impressed, that was until a small light at the end of the tunnel could just be seen. As everyone tensed and the doubters started to question 'what if they weren't crazy after all?', it all came to an anticlimactic end when the machine made a several clicking sounds like a malfunctioning printer and the light slowly faded out.

"I knew it," Jazz muttered, almost sounding disappointed.

"I don't understand. What went wrong?" Maddie said as she frantically flipped through some notes scattered around the computer table. Meanwhile, Jack Fenton quietly stood by the machine looking like a kicked puppy. "All the calculations were right. We did—"

"Maddie, perhaps it is best not to fret over it now. We can come back to it later with fresh eyes," Vlad said, taking Danny's mom by the shoulders. Danny almost gagged at the sight.

"But if we can suss out the problem now—" she started to say.

"Maddie, dear, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Perhaps we should get preparations started for dinner tomorrow to take our minds off of this," Vlad said.

There was a moment where she looked like she wanted to protest until finally the light died out of her eyes and her shoulders slumped. "You're right. We shouldn't be obsessing over this so close to Christmas." She pulled out of Vlad's hold and went over to her husband. "Come on, Jack, honey."

She pulled Jack away from the machine and out of the basement, followed by Vlad and the rest of the party. Jazz closed the door behind her, seeing as she was the last one out.

The adults left the kids still standing by the entrance into the basement, going into the kitchen, supposedly to work on dinner plans for tomorrow.

"I'll just go with them, seeing as I'm the only one that can cook in this house," Jazz muttered as she followed her parents and Vlad into the kitchen.

"Well, that sucks," Sam said, breaking the awkward silence that started to form. "I was so looking forward to seeing a ghost."

Danny shot her a look.

"Sorry, not the time, I guess," she amended.

"Man, your dad looked so heart broken," Tucker said.

"Yeah, well he's only been working on it for his entire adult life," Danielle piped in.

"I mean, we knew it wouldn't work, but...it still sort of hurts," Danny said rubbing the back of his neck.

There was another pause until Danielle suddenly said, "Hey, wait a second. Did anyone see Dan come out of the basement?"

Danny started at the realization. Quietly cursing under his breath, he went back down to the lab, Sam, Tucker, and Danielle following behind.

There Dan was, standing right in front of the machine, back turned to them. He didn't react to Danny and company reentering the lab, either not caring or not noticing them at all.

"Hey, Dan, did you not notice that everyone had left?" Danny called out annoyedly.  
Dan glanced back, but his mind still seemed to be half in another place. He mumbled something too quietly to hear from all the way across the lab.

Danny turned to Danielle to see if she had heard, but she just shrugged and shook her head.

"What did you say?" Danny asked.

"I thought I felt something...from the portal when they tried to get it working," Dan said, his voice sounding distant and strange. It set Danny on edge.

"Well, I'm sure our parents would love to hear about it later. Why don't you come out here with us?" Danny said.

His suggestion went completely ignored, and to Danny's and everybody else's horror, Dan started to walk into the machine.

Danny ran up to the mouth of the portal and caught Dan's sleeve. The older boy turned to him with a sharp glare and brushed his hand off.

"Go back up there if your scared. I'm going to check this out," he said tersely.

"Dan, you really shouldn't," Danielle said, walking up to the portal with Sam and Tucker following awkwardly. "Even though it didn't work, you still could get electrocuted if you accidentally touch something."

Dan's gaze softened a little when it landed on his younger sister. "Don't worry, Ellie. I'll be out in a minute," he said, using her childhood nickname.

He took a few more steps into the interior of the machine, until Danny's anger finally broke and he stepped in front of Dan. "That is it! You always come here and fuck shit up, and one of us has to deal with it later. Not this time!"

Danny yelped when his half brother suddenly seized him by the front of his shirt and hauled him a foot off the ground. "Look you little shit," he snarled in Danny's face, "I have just as much right to be here as you do. She's my mom too!"

Danny wretched himself out of his older brother's hold. He stumbled and braced himself against the side of the tunnel. He didn't notice that he had accidentally pressed a button in a panel that had been left open by mistake, and no one noticed the quiet mechanical whine that started up with it.

"Well, you don't act like it!" Danny threw back, straightening out his shirt. "When was the last time you said more than two words to her in one sitting?"

"Guys!" Danielle shouted, cutting off whatever Dan was about to say. "Could you at least come out of the potentially deadly machine to fight?" she said, taking a step forward and outstretching a hand.

Dan opened his mouth to say something to Danielle until he was cut off again, this time by Sam. She vigorously pointed to the portal and shouted, "Look!"

Everyone turned to the end of the tunnel, where a small green light was building. The three siblings had no time to react before everything turned green.

Danny being the closest to the back of the machine, got the worst of the blast. He let out an ear piercing scream as his back was hit with the green light. He dimly remembered hearing or reading somewhere that human nerve cells couldn't differentiate between extreme heat and extreme cold. He had never wanted to test out that theory on himself, but he could now say that that was indeed true. He couldn't tell if he was burning or freezing.

Finally, and to his relief, he felt his consciousness receding. He welcomed oblivion with open arms and let darkness consume him.

* * *

 

Danielle was only at the lip of the tunnel when it started. It happened so quickly, but she had the best vantage point. The others likely hadn't seen the green lightening arching around the tunnel's walls before the whole interior of the machine was consumed in green light. In fact, one of those green bolts had hit her outstretched hand just before the rest of the swirling green mass met with the opening of the tunnel.

She hit the floor of the lab, hardly registering it throughout the static in her head.

Tucker and Sam rushed up to her as she twitched on the ground like a dying bug. Or at least she thought it was Tucker and Sam. She wasn't sure. Danielle faintly felt the sensation of being dragged across the ground, but she couldn't be sure of that either. Her vision was tunneling and all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears. So really, she wasn't sure of anything at the moment.

* * *

 

Dan had thought he had felt something when he was arguing with his annoying little brother, but had stupidly brushed it off. It was a heat in the back of his throat, and he had felt it before, namely when they had tried to start up the portal earlier, and sometimes when he was alone in his dad's mansion. He sorely wished he hadn't ignored it this one time, out of all the other times he had let it get to him.

Danny's face contorted in agony, and he let out an ear splitting scream when the wave green light hit his back. Dan couldn't say he let out a very dignified sound either once the swirling energy engulfed him as well.

The pain was so much it almost brought him to his knees. He was at least proud of himself for staying conscious, unlike Danny, who nearly slumped into his arms.

Through the fog of pain, Dan dimly realized that he had to get out of this green hell, and fast. He grabbed Danny around his middle and awkwardly dragged himself and his half brother out of the tunnel.

He did all he could not to collapse to the ground when he reached the mouth of the tunnel. Instead, he not so gently let Danny down, and then allowed his legs to give out under him.


	2. Snitches Get Stitches

Dan had to restrain himself from going upstairs and asking for help. The only thing that kept him in check was the fear of what the consequences may be if Jack and his mother and father found out. But this, the waiting was killing him. He had blacked out for only about a minute, and Ellie had come to even before him. Danny on the other hand had been out for almost ten minutes now.

"Damn it! What the hell are we doing!" he said his anger finally breaking.

All eyes turned to him, even Danny's friends. Dan had to avert his eyes from the goth girl. A few leaked tears had made messy gray tracks, and she sent him a hateful look. 'You did this' her look said, but Dan already knew that, and it was eating him alive.

"What do you mean 'what are we doing'?" Danielle asked sending him a tired anxious look.

'I mean what are we doing standing around while Danny could be dying', he thought but didn't say. Instead he just shook his head and began to pace.

"Danny's breathing, he's not dead. Everything is going to be okay," Danielle said with a slight tremble in her voice. Apparently she wasn't so sure about that.

"Sure it is, Ellie. Sure it is," Dan mumbled under his breath. Even if Danny woke up soon and was relatively unharmed, the way Danny's friends had described how he and Dan had looked when they came out of the portal gave Dan the sinking feeling that noting would be the same.

Dan came to an abrupt halt in his pacing when Danny finally let out a small groan. Dan couldn't help himself from letting out a small sigh of relief.

* * *

 

Pain was the first thing Danny became aware of as he regained consciousness. The second thing was a voice calling his name.

"Danny...Danny...Danny, wake up!"

However, it sounded so distant and staticky that he was convinced it was just a character on TV yelling at another character that shared his name. Danny left his TV on just about every night to go to sleep to, so there certainly wasn't anything weird about waking up to hearing it.

Stubbornly, he tried to go back to sleep, but the pain was just a stubborn and persistently pulled him back into the waking world. Danny's other senses started to come back to him, like the awful metallic taste in his mouth and the cold hard surface under his cheek. When the smell of burnt hair finally made itself known, Danny then decided that maybe he should stop ignoring the person that might or might not actually be calling to him. Though, he was pretty sure now that it was in fact someone calling him in the real world and not just someone on his TV.

He reluctantly pealed his eyes open and noticed he was laying on cold tiled ground. There were only two places in his house with a tile flooring: the bathroom and his parents lab. Judging by the blurry shapes that he could just make out as metal table legs, he'd say he was in the lab. How he'd gotten into his parents lab was another problem entirely, and one that Danny wasn't quite ready to deal with yet.

Danny pushed away his confusion for the moment to try to sit up, but he acted too quickly, making his head spin like a top and stretching surprisingly sensitive flesh on his back. Well, maybe sensitive was a bit of an understatement, seeing as the resulting pain was so severe that it made him cry out and squeeze his eyes shut.

He didn't even have time to recover from his new trauma before someone was saying, "Oh, thank God your awake!" They (he thought it was Sam but he couldn't be too sure) helped him sit up the rest of the way. He appreciated her help, but the further stretching of the skin on his back was excruciating.

Danny simply sat there with his head in hands, waiting for the pain to subside. After what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a minute or two, the pain turned from agonizing to throbbing-but-bearable. He still didn't bother lifting his head as he asked in a raspy voice, "What the hell happened?"

"You don't remember?" Tucker said. He had a strange tone in his voice that suddenly made Danny nervous.

He started to look up at Tucker to see what was wrong, but then was smacked in the face with the swirling green vortex right in front of him. It didn't take long after that for him to remember what had happened.

The first thing he thought of after his memories came pouring back was if Danielle was okay. She had been right at the opening. She could have gotten hurt by the portal's sudden start, too.

His search for his sister came to a screeching halt before it even began when he was suddenly enfolded in two thin arms. "Danny, I'm so glad you're okay!" Danielle croaked in a painfully rough voice.

As soon as he got over the shock of suddenly being embraced by surprise, he hugged his sister back.

Another thing struck him then. He pulled out of the hug and turned to Sam and Tucker with a slight glare. "Why didn't you guys get my parents?" He asked accusatorially. If it had just been him that had gotten caught in the portal, he wouldn't have cared. In fact, he would have probably thanked Sam and Tucker for not getting his parents, but Danielle was there. She could have gotten hurt too.

He turned back to his twin when he felt her hand on his shoulder. He glanced down at her hand and gasped when he noticed the burns marring her skin. Lightening bolt shaped welts started just below her wrist and ran up her arm until they were hidden by the rest of her shirt sleeve, which was burned off almost halfway up to her shoulder. To explain to you what that really meant, Danielle had been wearing gray long sleeved t-shirt before the accident.

Danny grabbed her hand and stared at the wound, a horrified expression firmly planted on his face. "Ellie, your arm!" he practically shouted.

Danielle snatched her hand back with an annoyed look. "Would you stop? I'm not a baby," she snapped. "If you should be worried about anyone it should be yourself. You were out for nearly ten minutes!"

He glanced down at himself and realized with a grimace that he probably was worse off that her. His shirt was basically just rags barely hanging from his shoulders, and he didn't even know where his hoodie went. He probably didn't even want to look at what was going on with his back.

"Once again, why the hell didn't you guys get help?" he asked looking at his sister this time.

Danny flinched when his older brother suddenly spoke up. "Apparently because of how we both looked when we first came out of the portal. Oh and I'm not dead either, by the way. Not that you cared I'm sure."

Danny felt a small stab of guilt—he hadn't even thought about his older half brother—but brushed it off for the moment.

"And how exactly did we look?" Danny asked.

Instead of explaining, Dan just sent a look to Sam and Tucker.

He glanced over at his friends. Sam gave Tucker a pointed look. Danny looked from Tucker to Sam then settled on Tucker. Seeing as he was the one apparently expected to talk, Tucker explained, "Because...you guys looked pretty freaky when you first came out of the portal."

"Wow, that's very descriptive, Tucker. Good job," Sam said.

"Alright then you tell him!"

"Fine," Sam said with a huff. She turned to Danny and began to explain, "You basically just looked like an inverse of what you looked like when you went in—you know, instead of black hair, you had white hair. Your clothes had even switched colors. Pretty much the same thing for Dan...except he had blue skin and...a few other things going on."

"You also kind of had a radioactive glow going on, too," Tucker added.

Danny looked between his friends. "You're joking," he deadpanned.

They both shook their heads.

"We kind of just froze," Tucker said. "I mean what are you supposed to do when your best friend turns into a ghost."

At the wide eyed look Danny gave them, Sam elbowed Tucker in the ribs and sent him a glare.

"I'm dead?!" Danny shrieked.

There was a chorus of enthusiastic 'no's' from his friends and sister, whereas Dan said in an annoyed voice, "No, idiot, ghost don't hyperventilate like you're doing right now."

Danny took a deep breath and rubbed a shaking hand over his face. He then looked up at Dan with a glare that could curdle milk. "You bastard, you did this," Danny muttered venomously.

Dan flinched ever so slightly, but then sneered. "I doubt anything would have happened if you would have just stayed out of the way."

"No, nothing would have happened if you hadn't walked into the portal like an idiot!" Danny shouted, getting to his feet.

Suddenly, his aches and pains were almost nonexistent.

"Guys please don't. Your fighting is what got us into this mess," Danielle said, standing, as well.

Danny turned back to his sister with a frown. He opened his mouth to retort but quickly found he had nothing to say that wouldn't sound either childish or repetitive, so he shut it with a snap.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Danielle said smugly, crossing her arms.

Danny heaved a sigh. "Alright, if you're being Miss Mature, then what are supposed to do now?"

Danielle seemed to wilt. "Come on, this isn't my job. You were born first! You decide!" she whined.

"You know, whenever I bring that up you say 'it was just five minutes'," Danny said.

"Whatever!" Danielle huffed crossing her arms.

Danny sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Maybe we should just ask Dan what to do since he's the oldest and is actually an adult," Danny said. He was of course being sarcastic.

Dan however looked unfazed. He shrugged and said, "Well, whatever we do, I don't think we should tell our parents."

Danny had been ready to ignore anything that came out of Dan's mouth, but he knew a part of him agreed. Maybe it was just a knee jerk reaction after he had nearly been killed, and his mind was still reeling from the ordeal, but it seemed like a pretty good idea not to tell their parents, at least for the time being.

He frowned and looked to Danielle. "I don't really want to tell them either," she said in a quiet voice. He then glanced at his friends. Sam shrugged but looked like she agreed, Tucker on the other hand looked apprehensive.

Danny turned back to his half brother. "Okay, I guess we won't tell anyone," he said reluctantly.

"Okay so now that that's settled," Dan said, brushing his hands together like he was brushing away dirt, "how about we just get out of here before someone comes looking for us?"

* * *

   
Dan held up what was left of his leather jacket in front of his face with a deep frown. It had once been very valuable, probably having been bought from a top retailer, but now it was basically just a scrap of cow hide. Danny couldn't help but feel a little bit of sadistic satisfaction from it.

"My jacket is ruined," Dan practically growled.

"Yeah, well, I think my entire hoodie was disintegrated," Danny said, pulling a fresh shirt over his head.

Dan shot him a glare. "Your stupid hoodie probably only cost about twenty bucks. This—" he said holding up his ruined jacket— "was over ten thousand dollars and tailor made."

Danny tried not to choke on the air. Ten thousand fucking dollars for a jacket?! Danny shook off his incredulity and said, "I sure you can just buy another one. You're rich aren't you?"

Dan glared at his younger brother. "Dad bought it for me for my eighteenth birthday."

Danny shrugged. "Oh well, sucks to be you."

Danny knew he was in trouble when Dan's face went blank. Dan threw his unimpressive frame to the floor as if he was knocking over an empty paper cup.

"Jeez Danny, why are so clumsy?" Dan deadpanned. "You should be more careful." His last words obviously had a double meaning.

Dan then left without another word or backward glance.

"Yeah, good riddance," Danny said lamely at the already closed door.

Danny picked himself off the floor and straightened out his clothes, cursing his older brother under his breath as he did.

Shrugging on a new hoodie, Danny walked out of his room, closing the door behind him.

He walked down the hall to Danielle's room to check on her. He knocked on the door once before she answered.

"What?" Danielle asked a little annoyedly.

"I just...wanted to make sure you're still okay," Danny said awkwardly.

"Well, I'm fine, thanks for asking," she said and slammed the door in his face.

Danny stood there for a minute, blinking at the door in surprise before he heaved a weathered sigh. "So this must be what Jazz feels like when she's trying to psychoanalyze me," he mumbled to himself as he turned and walked away from his sister's room.

He descended the stairs and walked into the living room where Sam and Tucker were once again patiently waiting for him.

"Hey, do you want me walk you guys home—or do you want to call your rides?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You're probably pretty tired from the...thing earlier," Sam said.

"No, actually," Danny said with a chuckle. It was funny actually. There was still a deep throb in his back where he assumed he had been hit by the brunt of the energy when the portal had turned on, but surprisingly he didn't really feel tired, other than in spirit.

"Look, I kind of just need to walk with you guys and clear my head," he said earnestly.

"That's fine, dude. It'd be kinda weird without you anyway," Tucker said with an encouraging smile. It looked just a bit forced, but it was the thought that counted.

As Danny walked with his friends, there was hardly any conversation. Tucker tried to start a few but was quickly shot down with short, one sentence answers. Danny was understandably quiet in light of the recent events, but Sam had also become uncharacteristically quiet, as well.

After dropping off each of his friends, Danny walked alone down the street towards his house. The street lamps were just turning on.

When he was only a few houses away from his own, Danny heard a sound like fabric ripping above him. As anyone would, he looked up to see what it was. His eyes widened when they landed on a swirling green vortex—much like the one in his basement—floating about twenty feet in the air. He stood there staring at it for a good five minutes until it simply closed in on itself and ceased to exist.

Danny continued to stare at the now empty space for another minute until he suddenly bolted, taking off for his house in a dead sprint. He lunched himself up the steps and through the door, slamming it behind him. Danny stood there leaning most of his weight into the door for a moment trying to catch his breath.

Finally he took in a deep gulp of air, and straightened.

"I just going to pretend that didn't happen for now," he said to himself as he made his way up to his room.

Before he even reached the top of the stairs, someone called his name. He turned to see who it was with a frown, but upon seeing his mom he quickly forced a smile.

She was standing in the doorway to the basement looking like she was about to burst with excitement. "Danny, you have to come see this!" she practically squealed.

"See what?" he asked, a little startled.

"The Ghost Portal! We honestly have no idea what happened! It's like it just spontaneously turned its self on! Come on, you have to come see!" she said, gesturing wildly for him to follow her.

Danny knew they would find it eventually, but as he followed his mom back down into the lab, a cold knot of dread formed in his stomach. Would they find out it was their dumb kids horsing around that turned it on? It's not like they left any evidence that would lead directly to that conclusion, but his parents were smart, weren't they? They did figure out how to create a portal to another world, after all.

Danny came to stand by his other siblings who were already down in the lab. Jazz looked like she was trying very hard to figure out how their portal could work if there was no ghost world or ghosts at all. Danielle just looked like she was about to be sick, similar to how Danny felt, and Dan sent him a nervous look, which was the first look directed at Danny that wasn't either bored or annoyed. It was safe to say that they were all scared out of their heads.

"Isn't this amazing!" Danny's mother exclaimed, ripping him out of his worried thoughts.

"It sure is, sweet cheeks!" Jack said, wrapping one of his huge bear like arms around his wife. "Think of all the new data we can collect now that we actually have access to the Ghost Zone!"

"We're really going to have to start working on that probe design we've had drawn up for months now," Maddie sad mostly to herself.

"Hey, Vladdie!" Jack said, calling to Vlad who had been quietly standing by the portal, inspecting it since Danny came down to the lab. "What do you think of all this? Isn't it kind of like that little project we started all the way back in college is finally finished?"

Vlad silently turned from the swirling green vortex to Danny's father. "Oh, no, Jack, this is just the beginning really." For some reason Danny found something quite sinister in the words of his parent's old college buddy.

"You're right, V-man! We have so much to do!"

Before they got hooked into another conversation about ghosts, during which the rest of the world didn't exist, Danny interrupted them. "Uh, hey, can we go? I-I have some things I need to do, so..."

"Oh, yes, fine, fine, I just wanted you to see it honey!" Danny's mother said, turning to him with a beaming smile. Danny tried to give her one back that didn't look too forced.

As Danny turned to leave, the rest of his siblings not far behind, he mumbled under his breath, "Thanks, but I think I've seen enough of it to last me a lifetime."

While Dan stayed in the living room and Jazz and Danielle headed for their rooms, Danny headed for the bathroom.

He rummaged around in the medicine cabinet until he finally settled on the closest thing he was looking for. He pulled an ancient looking bottle of NyQuil that looked like it hadn't been opened in ages. It was probably expired but, hey, maybe it was like wine and became more potent with age.

It probably wasn't even eight yet, but he downed the rest of the contents of the bottle, anyway, not even glancing at the safe dosage printed on the label.


	3. Twilight Zone

Sunlight filtered through Danny's eyelids, dragging him back into wakefulness. He groaned and rolled over, stubbornly trying to go back to sleep. He probably would have succeeded if he hadn't suddenly heard someone else snore from the other side of his room.

Groggily, he lifted his head to see his older brother asleep on a cot. With a huff, he flopped back down in bed. Vlad and Dan Masters must had arrived yesterday. Danny could just dimly recall coming home with Sam and Tucker to find Dan in his living room.

Danny didn't want to be in the same house as Dan, much less the same room, so he decided that he should just go ahead and get out of bed. He shoved his covers off and rose with a stretch, pulling on surprisingly stiff muscles. Danny made his way to his dresser, and pulled out a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt.

Usually, he would laze around in his pajamas for as long as he could on days where he didn't have to go to school, but Danny didn't feel comfortable enough to go about his normal lazy routine, what with the two intruders in his house.

With his clothes tucked under his arm, Danny went to his door, circumnavigating Dan's cot. Unfortunately, in his still sleep hazed mind, he miscalculated and firmly banged his foot against one of the metal legs of the cot. Danny had to bite his tongue to keep from spewing a fountain of curses, while Dan simply mumbled in his sleep and rolled over.

Danny limped to the bathroom in a slightly worse mood than before. On the way, he heard someone whistling from the kitchen. The only person Danny could imagine being that peppy in the morning was Jazz. Danny shook his head. He loved his older sister, but she could almost be weirder than their parents sometimes.

Danny made it to his destination without further mishap, laid his clothes on the counter and pulled out a towel. He turned on the shower and waited for it to warm then began to strip.

He stopped halfway through pulling off his shirt when he spotted something in the bathroom mirror. Danny pulled off his shirt fully and twisted to try to get a better look. From what he could see, most of his back was consumed in scar tissue with little tendrils of pink flesh coming off the main mass of scar tissue, some wrapping around his front.

Whatever bit of sleep still clogged his mind, suddenly cleared, and the rest of the memories of yesterday came back in a rush.

A quiet 'oh' escaped his mouth.

Danny looked at the scarring again and noted that it was already almost healed. Which was obviously weird for something that happened only a day ago.

He probably would have continued to stand there inspecting his new very large scar if the mirror hadn't fogged up, reminding him that he had the shower going.

In more or less a state of daze, Danny finished showering, dried off, and dressed himself. He started to make his was down to the kitchen when he heard a soft thud from Danielle's room.

At another time, Danny probably would have ignored it, but everything seemed to be slightly skewed. Since last night things had been set in hyper focus, and he kept feeling like the other shoe was about to drop.

Danny raised his hand to knock, but rethought the action at the last second. Was it really worth possibly igniting his twin's rage just to check on her when it could very well be nothing? He could wake her up and then have to suffer the consequences of doing so just because he couldn't control his paranoia.

But something could be very wrong. What if she was laying in the floor and couldn't get up like one of those old people in the Life Alert commercials? He knew in the back of his mind this was all crazy. Danielle was more physically fit than he was and certainly had the ability to lift herself off the floor in the event she fell.

Unless she passed out, or or was unconscious for some reason...

In the end, his paranoia won out, and he cautiously knocked on his twin's door. "Hey, Ellie, are you okay?"

* * *

 

Danielle woke up aching all over and shaking from chills. Unlike Danny, she remembered right away what had happened yesterday, and immediately blamed all her aches and pains on the accident. Why she was so cold though was beyond her.

Oh well, it was nothing a little ibuprofen and chocolate orange juice couldn't fix. That wonderful concoction could fix just about anything. She thanked the muses on a regular basis for inspiring her to mix chocolate syrup in OJ.

She pushed her covers off and twisted to sit on the edge of her bed. She sat there for a moment, blinking the remainder of last night's sleep out of her eyes, then tried to stand. She let out a startled yelp when she felt herself falling, almost like her feet were going straight through the floor. But instead of falling all the way through to the kitchen below, Danielle pitched forward, and caught herself just in time to prevent a bruised chin.

She glanced down at their feet and saw that they looked perfectly solid, though she could have sworn something was going on with physics today.

Danielle started to pull herself up when she heard a soft knock on the door. "Hey, Ellie, are you okay?" Danny said through the door.

"I'm fine," she answered.

There was a pause and then, "Hey, are you decent?" Danny asked through the door.

Danielle blinked, not completely understanding the reason he asked, but she answered anyway, "Yeah, why?"

"Because I don't believe you and I'm coming in," he said and threw open the door.

Danny was immediately hit in the face with one of Danielle's many stuffed animals. "I said I'm fine!"

The overprotective idiot that he was, he rushed to help her up. She tried to shove his hands away. "I just tripped," I think, she added in her head.

Danny leaned back and inspected her fully. "God, Danielle, you look horrible, and you're as cold as an ice cube," he said putting his hand on her forehead. "What did you do? Sleep with the window open last night?"

"No, I'm fine!" she said as another chill racked her body.

"Yeah, sure you are," he said sarcastically. "And this is all just totally unrelated to what happened yesterday, right?"

Danielle looked down. "I don't know," she said quietly.

Without warning, Danny grabbed her arm—the one that had a nice tattoo of a lightning bolt on it now—and pulled up the sleeve of her night shirt.

"Hey—" she cut off whatever protests she was about to say when she saw what had happened to her arm. Danny and Danielle both had an 'eww' moment.

The pink marks running up her arm caused by the events of yesterday were joined with ugly blisters filled with lime green puss and surrounding rash. To say the least, they were both appalled by what they saw. Danielle wasn't even sure puss could be that color.

"Okay...maybe we should tell Mom and Dad after all," Danny said with a slight quiver in his voice.

"No!" Danielle nearly yelled. She rushed under her covers and hid. "I still think we were right in not telling them. Besides," she said waving a hand flippantly, "I have a feeling that this isn't going to turn into anything serious, anyway. Remember when we both got the flu and I got over it in only a few days while you had it for a whole week and a half. I have a strong immune system."

"Yeah, but this isn't just the flu!" Danny hissed through clenched teeth.

"Well...I don't really care," Danielle said hiding half her face in her blanket. "I don't want to go to the doctor. You know I'm afraid of the hospital almost as much as Tucker. Plus, I really don't feel like being grounded for the rest of my life for messing around in the lab alone."

She could see she was wearing him down and decided to pull out the finisher: the puppy dog eyes.

Danny sighed. "Alright, fine, I'll keep quiet, but if this gets any worse, I'm telling. Also people are going to notice you're sick just by one look of you."

"If I look as bad as you say, I should probably avoid Jazz at all costs. Sometimes I wonder if she's even crazier than Mom and Dad."

"You know, I was just thinking the same thing. Anyway, do you want me to brave the kitchen and Jazz for you?"

Danielle shrugged. "I'm not sure I want any food, but I could use a solid dose of ibuprofen and some chocolate orange juice."

* * *

 

Danny rued the day that Danielle had found the "miracle" of chocolate orange juice when she was goofing around in the kitchen one time. He grimaced at the thought of the concoction that his twin liked for some strange reason, but agreed to get it for her.

Danny went to the kitchen to get her drink and then scrounge up some breakfast for himself. Unfortunately his plans hit a bump when he walked into the kitchen to see Vlad instead of Jazz standing over the stove making pancakes.

"Daniel, you're up a bit early," the billionaire said.

"Er...I guess I am," Danny stuttered, glancing at the clock in the kitchen to see it was only eight thirty.

"Anyway, do you want some breakfast?" Vlad asked.

"Sure..."

Vlad gestured to the table, indicating Danny to sit. Despite desperately not wanting to do so, Danny awkwardly complied.

"You know, it's strange how your parents ghost portal spontaneously started working, don't you think?" Vlad said conversationally.

"Um, I guess..." Danny said, eyes darting as if looking for an escape. Unfortunately this wasn't something someone could just run from, like a bully wanting to give him a swirly at school. There were sociological rules to a situation like this, and Danny couldn't for the life of him, think of a good excuse to get out of the awkward encounter.

"Yes, I am right, aren't I?" Vlad said. "It's almost like someone fiddled with it after your parents left the lab." He half turned to give Danny a pointed look. There was something very predatory in the billionaire's gaze, and it nearly had Danny shitting bricks.

"You know, I'm just going to get breakfast later. I actually told Danielle I would get her some juice, so I'm just going to do that now," Danny said a little too quickly and stood from the table.

He went to the cabinet farthest from Vlad and pulled out a mug, almost dropping it with his nerves.

"Are you sure?" Vlad asked innocently. Danny glanced his way and saw that the billionaire was watching him like a hawk.

"Uh, yeah, I'm not really that hungry anyway," Danny said, trying to avoid Vlad's stare by pretending he was absorbed in his task of pouring orange juice.

Danny put away the carton, and left the kitchen as fast as he could. He made his way back up to his sister's room and handed her the glass of juice with a huff.

"What took you so long?" she asked taking the cup. "And you didn't even put any chocolate syrup in it!"

"Vlad was in the kitchen. No way am I going to put chocolate syrup in orange juice of all things in front of him. I feel embarrassed to make it just when I'm alone," Danny said crossing his arms.

"Coward," Danielle muttered as she took a sip of her woefully plain orange juice.

"Show a little sympathy. I had to talk to Vlad, and what's worse, I think he's on to us. He was talking to me about how strange it was that the portal had just started up on its own."

Danielle cursed under her breath. "You think he'll tell mom and dad?"

Danny shook his head. "I don't think so. There was just something very...sneaky about the way he was talking about it that almost worries me more."

Danielle groaned and flopped back into her bed. "Great another thing to deal with!"

"I know," Danny grumbled. "But he'll be gone in another day and so will Dan. Everything can kind of get back to normal after that."

"Yeah, I guess," Danielle said, not sounding very convinced.

To distract her, Danny gave her a light kiss on her forehead. He quickly left her room, chuckling all the way out and dodging a few of her stuffed animals.

He went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth and grab a few Advil for Danielle. Usually he would wait until after breakfast to brush his teeth (it always felt like he was dirtying them right back up if he brushed his teeth and then ate), but he would have to wait until Vlad left the kitchen to get some food. Seeing as there was no telling how long that would take, Danny didn't want to wait an indeterminably long amount of time to get rid of his morning breath.

He squirted an unnecessarily large amount of toothpaste on his toothbrush and began lathering his teeth as he blandly stared at his reflection in the mirror. He finished and spat out the foam in the sink, but as he reached over to turn on the water, his attention was momentarily dragged towards the bathroom window when a bird landed right outside and began singing loudly.

As the water started pouring out of the faucet, his toothbrush in his other hand suddenly clattered into the sink. He thought it was just his usual clumsiness. Instead, when he turned his attention back to the sink, he saw that problem turned out be something Danny never could have expected: his hand and part of his forearm had simply disappeared.

Danny was not proud of shrill scream that tore out of his throat.

Danny back pedaled too fast and ended up in the tub, pulling down the shower curtain with him. When he finally untangled himself from the dolphin patterned plastic sheet, he brought his hand—or would have if it wasn't still missing—in front of his face. He felt like he had suddenly entered the twilight zone.

"Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ! What the—" he cut himself off and immediately began hyperventilating. It was a while before he got his breathing under control again.

Danny closed his eyes, unable to look at his stump any longer. "Please, please just give me my hand back," he said to no one in particular.

He cautiously opened his eyes when he felt a tingling like the blood was flowing back into his hand after it had fallen asleep. His hand hand magically reappeared and looked completely unchanged like nothing had happened at all.

Calmly, probably too calmly considering what had just happened, he got up from the tub and re-hung the shower curtain. He then finished his former task of brushing his teeth and rinsed.

He took the stairs two at a time, almost tripping on the last step. He recovered quickly, desperate to get out of his house into the regular world where things made more sense. He wasn't exactly sure where he was going, but he just knew that he needed to get out now.

He nearly screamed when Vlad ambushed him.

"Daniel, are you all right?" the billionaire asked looking worried. Danny couldn't tell if it was faked or not.

"I-I'm fine. I just saw a—um—a huge s-spider in the bathtub. It's dead now, s-so you don't have to worry about that," Danny stammered, inching toward the door.

The basement door suddenly swung open, making Danny almost jump a foot in the air. "Danny, you're already awake!" his father boisterously said, likely waking everybody else up in the house if they hadn't already been awakened by Danny's screams of terror.

"Have you been down there all night?" Danny asked, slightly horrified.

"Well, I just couldn't get to sleep last night with everything that happened!" Jack said. "Anyway, look at these plans I drew up! I call it the Ghost Shredder!" He held up the blueprints in front of his son's terrified face. "It can suck a ghost in from twenty feet away and shred it into confetti!"

Danny felt sick to his stomach. "I gotta go," he blurted out and bolted for the door, not even bothering to grab his coat off the rack.


	4. Get Together

Pamela Manson looked quite startled when she opened her front door to see a disheveled and panting Danny Fenton.

"I need to—I need to talk to Sam," he wheezed.

"She told me you'd invited her over for dinner. I hadn't expected you wanted her to come over so soon," Sam's mother said.

"This isn't what this is about, Mrs. Manson. Can I please just talk to her?" he said still slightly out of breath.

"Oh...alright, she's up stairs in her room, per usual," Mrs. Manson said a bit confusedly.

Danny climbed the stairs as fast as he could, but he was finally running out of steam seeing as he had sprinted almost all the way there as it was. He would be proud of his sudden spirt of athleticism if he wasn't a panicked mess at the moment.

He pounded on Sam's door with so much force that he thought he might have heard the hinges crack. Sam answered it almost immediately and quickly pulled him in.

"What the fuck, Danny? Its only—" Sam glanced at her alarm clock and gave an annoyed huff when she saw what time it was. "It's only nine o'clock! What are you doing here?"

Danny noticed she hadn't even changed out of her nightgown yet. He remembered with a wince that his gothic friend was anything but a morning person. She was worse than him about staying up late and sleeping in even later when she could.

"I'm sorry, Sam, but your house is closer than Tucker's. Plus, I'm not exactly thinking straight right now," Danny admitted.

Sam sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. "Alright, what is it now? Does it have to do with what happened yesterday?" she asked.

"Probably," Danny answered.

"Well, spill."

Danny stalled for a second, fidgeting with his hands and incessantly tapping his foot, until finally he blurted out, "My arm disappeared!"

Sam calmly raised one of her eyebrows. "I can see both of your arms," she deadpanned.

"No, no, it came back obviously, but I was just brushing my teeth, minding my own business and then it disappeared! It was just totally gone for a whole minute at least!"

Sam didn't give him much of a reaction either way. She didn't really show skepticism or acceptance. "Could you try to make it happen again to show me?" she deadpanned.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I-I don't know. Maybe? But whatever happened before was completely by accident."

"Yeah, I get that. Just try," Sam said.

Danny sucked in a lungful of air. "Okay, I'll see what I can do."

Danny closed his eyes and simply imaged his hand was gone. He didn't have much hope it would work, that was until he heard Sam gasp. Danny opened his eyes to see that his hand had once again disappeared, though this time it was just his hand, whereas last time nearly his whole arm was missing.

Just as quickly as he had gotten a grip on this newfound power, it slipped, making his invisible appendage become visible once again, along with the sensation of pins and needles.

The two teens sat in stunned silence for a good minute staring at each other until Sam said, "We should probably tell Tucker."

"Yeah, I really need to get home and tell Danielle, too so..."

Sam drew in a long breath. "Alright, just let me get dressed first."

* * *

 

Since Danny was already nearly exhausted from running all the way to Sam's house, and she didn't particularly feel like walking the eight to ten minutes to Tucker's house at such an early hour, they used Sam's chauffeur, though she wasn't happy about it. Even if it wasn't a limo like her parents preferred to be carted around in, it was still a luxury SUV and used way more gas than she would like, which she complained to Danny about on the ride to Tucker's house.

While the SUV idled by the curb, Danny waited anxiously on the Foely's front porch rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Sam simply glared annoyedly at the large automobile at the curb, still blinking sleep out of her eyes, for the few minutes it took someone to answer the door.

Maurice Foely appeared in the doorway with a raised eyebrow, looking between the two teens. "You two are up early," he commented. "I'm not sure if Tucker's even awake yet." Even though he seemed curious and maybe even a little concerned, Mr. Foely stepped aside and gestured for Danny and Sam to come in.

"Can we just go up and see him?" Danny said, already at the foot of the stairs.

"Err...sure..." Tucker's father said uncertainly.

"Thanks! This is important, so I'm sure he'll understand," Danny threw over his shoulder as he took the steps as fast as he could.

Danny threw open the door to Tucker's room without even knocking. As best friends that had known each other since preschool they had lost all since of privacy for one another.

Tucker was sitting at his desk—that should be noted was full of technology and some miscellaneous computer parts—only in his boxers, yet, strangely, was still wearing his signature red beret. At Danny's sudden intrusion, the beef Slim Jim he had hanging from his mouth fell out.

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Did you pull an all-nighter?"

"N-no! Why would you say that?" Tucker said as he tried to hide several empty cans of energy drinks.

Sam caught up to Danny, and before he could warn her of Tucker's state of undress she squeezed in beside him. The moment she spotted Tucker she slapped a hand over her eyes and quickly tried to back out of the room but nearly tripped on a pile of dirty clothes in the process. Meanwhile, Tucker nearly fell out of his desk chair trying to cover himself.

"Why didn't you tell me Sam was here!?" Tucker cried.

"I'm sorry," Danny said, trying and failing to stifle his almost hysterical laughter.

Finally, Tucker snatched a blanket off his bed and wrapped it around himself like a toga. "Okay, so why exactly are you here now?"

"Some things have come up that I need to tell you about, but on the way to my house because I feel like I need to get back to Ellie," Danny said quickly.

"Why? Did something happen to her?" Tucker asked.

"Well...yeah, but I'll tell you later," Danny said tersely. "Just get dressed and meet me and Sam outside."

* * *

 

"Wow, Sam, I knew you were rich, but not this rich," Tucker said stroking the leather seats.

"If I could give you this ugly behemoth, Tucker, I would. I certainly don't want it," Sam said with a disgusted curl of her lip.

Tucker shook his head sadly. "You rich people don't appreciate what you have. I would ki-"

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Danny quickly cut in, sensing an argument brewing by the livid scowl on Sam's face.

"Oh, yeah, right. So what's this thing you have to tell me?" Tucker asked.

Danny glanced at Sam. "Your driver can't hear us right?" he asked cautiously.

Sam shook her head. "Not with the division up. Your safe."

He turned his attention back to Tucker. "Well, I kinda almost went into a death spiral this morning because...well..." Danny trailed off with a sigh. He knew that he would have to show Tucker anyway, so he stopped explaining with his words and simply held up his hand. Like last time with Sam, Danny simply imagined his hand going invisible.

Tucker's eyes widened comically and his mouth hung open slightly. "Am I the only one seeing this?" he asked quietly.

Sam, still in awe even though she had already seen it, said, "Nope. We all see it." Her voice was somewhat distant.

Tucker raised a hand an passed it through where Danny's should have been. Danny shivered at the weird tingling sensation he got from the action. From the way Tucker snatched his hand back and started rubbing it, he'd say that his friend had felt it too.

"Oh, my god," Tucker said, still clutching his hand. "My best friend is developing superpowers!"

Danny and Sam both glared at Tucker. "I'm not like Martian Manhunter, and this is serious. Something is wrong with Ellie too," Danny said.

"Is she turning invisible too? And what about Dan?" Sam asked soberly.

"I don't know about Dan, but Danielle... She's sick," Danny said slowly.

"Sick how?" Sam asked.

Danny's face twisted into a grimace when he remembered the green pustules on his sister's arm and how she was as pale as a sheet. "She's really sick," he said mostly to himself as if it was finally registering in his mind. It also seemed to finally registered that he was just a kid and she was just a kid and they were both so far out of their depths. "I don't know what's going on with her...or me," he said in hardly more than a whisper. "What the fuck are we going to do?"

"Hey, Danny, calm down, dude. If you guys could survive the ghost portal opening up right on top of you then you should be able to survive this," Tucker reasoned, putting a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder.

"And besides," Sam added, "we're your friends; we're always here if you need help."

Danny drew in a deep breath. He felt that, at least for the moment, the sky wouldn't start falling down around him. However, the gnawing worry never left.

"The thing is, guys, I don't think my parents have ever tested the effects of ectoplasm on a living thing, so even they don't know—" Danny stopped mid sentence when a memory suddenly hit him. "Except with Vlad."

Sam and Tucker looked between each other. "Uh, what about Vlad?" Sam asked.

"There was a lab accident about twenty years ago when my parents were still in college," Danny explained. "When mom and dad told the story they made it seem like Vlad had gotten blasted right in the face with a bunch of ectoplasm when their prototype for the ghost portal malfunctioned. Vlad then got something they called 'ectoacne', which is like regular acne but potentially deadly. Of course thanks to that my mom developed some kind of pseudo-Florence Nightingale Syndrome for Vlad, but that's not really important."

Danny's parents had told him, Danielle, and Jazz that story as a cautionary tale to stay away from their inventions and to stay out of the lab without parental supervision. It had done its job for quite some time.

"Well, that's good news, right?" Sam said. "It means that this will probably go away after a while. I mean it's pretty obvious that Vlad doesn't still have ectoacne—unless he's using a really good concealer."

"I guess," Danny said distractedly. Something was suddenly bothering him about the story with Vlad. However, he didn't have time to deal with it at the moment, seeing as the trio had finally arrived back at Danny's house of insanity.  
  
Danny wished he, Sam, and Tucker could just turn right back around and literally go anywhere else, but he couldn't leave Danielle alone for long in the condition she was in. Also it was Christmas Eve, and his mother would be pissed if he wasn't at home dying from overexposure of Dan and Vlad and awkward social situations.

Like a condemned man walking up to the chopping block, Danny got out of the car and walked up his front steps, his friends not far behind. He shakily opened the front door and walked in. There were no adults in sight so that was a good sign at least.

"Looks like the coast is clear," Danny said turning to Sam and Tucker.

A hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, nearly making him jump out of his skin for about the third time that morning.

He only calmed down slightly when he saw that it was just Dan. "Where the hell have you been? Out with your friends while Ellie is fucking dying up there?!" Dan hissed.

Danny's heart threatened to leap out of his chest. Had Danielle's condition suddenly worsened? Was she really dying like Dan said? Danny didn't have any time to ask those questions because he suddenly found himself racing up stairs to his twin sister's room, seemingly without conscious thought. He burst in on a startled and somewhat confused looking Danielle and went up to her bed where she was snuggled up in a mound of blankets.

"Danielle, are you okay!?" Danny asked as he fussed over her.

She frowned and pushed him away. "I'm not better, but I'm not really worse. Stop treating me like I'm on death's door!"

"But Dan said..."

Danny whipped around when he heard a soft chuckle from behind him. His older brother was comfortably leaning on the doorframe, wearing a sadistic smirk.

Sam and Tucker had followed them and now stood outside the open door in the hallway. They seemed relieved to see that Danielle was okay but also confused and a bit anxious, perhaps for the imminent confrontation between Danny and his older brother.

Danny sent a venomous glare at Dan. "Really? You're laughing at this? You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Calm down, I didn't mean for you to take it so literally," he said chuckling. "Anyway, you deserved it for leaving Danielle here like this and not even telling me to look after her."

Danielle rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Dan. You people act like I need around the clock attention when really I'm fine...for the most part." She ended her rant with an annoyed huff. She then leveled a glare at her twin. "But you did kinda just burn out of here. That wasn't cool either," Danielle said crossing her arms.

Danny ran a hand over his face. "I'm sorry, okay? Something just happened and I freaked out."

"What happened?" Dan asked disinterestedly as he idly inspected his nails.

Instead of trying to explain, Danny simply lifted his hand and turned it invisible. Danny didn't quite get the reaction he was expecting out of his older brother or even Danielle.

Dan merely raised a eyebrow. "So it's happening to you too," he said.

"What? Parts of you have been going invisible, too?" Danny asked, making his arm once again visible.

A smirk twisted Dan's mouth. "Not just parts," he said before completely disappearing.

A cold shiver ran up Danny's spine. Whether it was from the prospect of his sadistic older brother being able to turn completely invisible or some other reason, he didn't know.

Danny nearly jumped ten feet in the air when someone suddenly said "boo!" right beside his ear. And of course that someone was Dan.

Laughing, Dan became visible again.

"How are you suddenly an expert on something you couldn't even do a day ago?!" Danny ground out.

Dan shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know. Maybe it's just because I'm awesome." Danny couldn't have rolled his eyes harder if he tried.

"Whatever, I just hope this goes away soon," Danny said, crossing his arms. "I don't want to accidentally turn invisible in front of our parents."

"It's not going to," Dan said.

Danny blinked. "What?"

"It's not just going to go away."

Danny raised and eye brow. "What makes you say that?"

Dan cocked his head looking slightly confused. "Come on, can't you tell?" When Danny simply gave him a blank stare, Dan narrow his eyes. "Can't you feel it? Or maybe you don't want to."

Danny looked at him like he was insane. "What the hell are talking about?"

His older brother took a step closer. "Something is different about us in here." He poked Danny in the chest. "Whatever happened in the portal changed us on a molecular level, and I think you know that deep down. You just don't want to admit it."

Danny winced at the sharp prod to his chest and rubbed the sore area. "I have no idea what your talking about. The portal must have fried your brain." He tried to act as dismissive as he could, but that didn't stop the lump of dread from forming in his stomach.

Danny became worried for a second that Dan would lash out even in front of his friends and Danielle until his half brother's face split into a sneer. Dan chuckled and said, "Cute. You think you can hide from this." He ruffled Danny's hair, which Danny reacted to like he was being burnt. With another sneer, Dan sauntered away. "Just keep thinking that, kid," he threw over his shoulder on his way out the door.

Sam and Tucker came in closing the door behind them once the coast was clear.

"You know," Sam said crossing her arms, "I got a good sense of why you think he's a jerk yesterday, but man, it really hit home just now."

"He's not always like that," Danielle said.

Danny shook his head in disgust, but, not wanting to touch that subject again, he quickly diverted. "Where is everybody?"

"Well, Mom and Dad are just where you'd think they'd be," she said with a eye roll, "and I think Vlad is with them. Jazz is in the kitchen fixing dinner by herself."

"I guess I should go help her," Danny said with a shrug. Fixing big holiday diners was usually something that they all pitched in on, though Danny usually saw it as a chore. However, this time it might be a good mindless distraction from his worries.

"I would too, but we both agreed that avoiding Jazz as long as we possibly could would be in our best interest," Danielle said.

Danny turned to his friends. "Do either of you want to come with or...whatever?" he asked with a shrug. He didn't want to make his friends fix their own diner since they were guests after all, but he also didn't want to be alone in the kitchen with only his older sister.

"Just saying, but at least one of you has to stay and watch crappy Christmas movies with me. Which one of you will volunteer?" Danielle said, looking between Sam and Tucker.

"I'll stay. I'd really like to limit the time I have to spend around dead animal flesh, anyway," Sam replied.

Danny turned to Tucker who shrugged. "I help my mom cook all the time, so sure."

At that, the two boys made their way to the kitchen. However, Danny stopped in his tracks when he saw his older brother standing beside Jazz at the stove. A scowl instantly affixed itself on his face.

"What are you doing here?" Danny asked.

"What does it look like?" he answered, not taking his eyes off what he was mixing in a large pot.

"I'm sorry. I just can't imagine you being helpful in any situation," Danny said crossing his arms.

Dan sent him a glare, but it paled in comparison to the one Jazz sent him. "What are you doing in here Danny?" Jazz asked pointing at him threateningly with a wooden spoon. "Did you come down here just to spew childish insults at people, or what?"

Danny could feel his cheeks heating. "M-me and Tucker just came down here to help."

Jazz's attention slid over to Tucker as if she hadn't noticed him until then. She gave him a small strained smile. "Hello Tucker." Her smile was then replaced with a frown. "You're here kind of early, don't you think?"

It was really a casual question, but Danny was already so high strung that he panicked. Danny slung an arm around his friend's shoulder. "I couldn't wait until this afternoon to see him b-because I just love him so much!" It hit him a second later what exactly he said, and he awkwardly pulled his arm back from around Tucker's shoulders, who was refusing to make eye contact with him.

"Is this your way of coming out?" Jazz said with a completely neutral expression.

"No, no, platonically! Our love is purely platonic!" Danny nearly slapped himself.

"Ooookay," Jazz said, turning back to her cooking. Without looking up from stirring the pot she was cooking in, she said, "If you really want to help, here's a list of what we're doing..." She then began outlining the menu for tonight's meal, but Danny wasn't really listening because he was too busy wishing he could just blip out of existence.

Danny was startled out of his brooding when he heard Tucker gasp from beside him. He started to turn and ask what was wrong, but Tucker beat him to it. "Dude, look down." Danny, following his friends advice, did just that, though, when he saw that his entire lower half was invisible, he wished he hadn't.

Dan, apparently having heard the sounds of distress, glanced over boredly at his younger brother and his friend. He had to do a double take before he glanced at Jazz worriedly and then back to Danny.

"Get a hold of yourself!" he furiously mouthed. All Danny could do was respond with a helpless gesture.

Danny didn't know if it was better or worse that the rest of his body joined his lower half. When Jazz paused in her rundown of tonight's meal and looked over at him, he decided that staying a floating top would not have been good in any way.

Jazz blinked in confusion and turned to Tucker, who looked like he was about to have an aneurism. "Where did Danny go?" she asked.

"Uh, um, he had to use the bathroom!" Tucker squeaked out.

Jazz gave him a probing look making Tucker sweat. She started to open her mouth to say something, but at that moment one of the pots began to whistle. She abandoned her interrogation for the moment in favor of dealing with the pot. She was just about to turn back to Tucker when Danny's bottom half reappeared.

"Jazz!" Dan nearly yelled, yanking her attention away from the spectacle just in the nick of time.

"What?!" she answered back in the same tone and volume of voice.

"Um, don't you think it would be better if we made sweet potato pie rather than pumpkin? I mean pumpkin pie is such a...Thanksgiving kind of pie, don't you think?"

Jazz gave him a slow blink before saying, "I find it interesting that you feel that way, but I'm doing both, which you would know if you had really listened to me."

"By the way, the sweet potato pie is vegan for Sam," she said turning back to Tucker. She jumped slightly when she saw that Danny was once again standing by his side.

After her initial moment of shock, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

"W-what do you mean?" Danny stuttered.

"How..." she began to say, but then held up a hand. "You know what, never mind. If you still want to help just go make the pie for Sam. I already laid out the recipe and ingredients in case you came down and wanted to help," she said, pointing to it.

Danny and Tucker scrambled to do as told before any more mishaps.

"Hey can we forget any of that just happened?" Danny asked quietly.

Tucker waved a hand. "It's already forgotten."

"Okay, good," Danny breathed.

"Anyway," he said picking up the piece of paper with the recipe on it, "let's see what we got." Halfway through reading it Danny groaned. "Everything's by scratch."

Leaning over his friends shoulder to get a look at the recipe, Tucker said, "That's no big deal. My mom always does things by scratch. She says it's the best way to go." Danny started to ask Tucker if his mother was a masochist, but decided against it at the last second.

"Okay, I guess I'll do the crust and you can work on the filling," Danny said.

Tucker held up a thumbs up. "Cool."

When Danny was about half way through mixing the ingredients to the crust, there was a loud bang from the living room, making him jump and nearly spill the contents of the mixing bowl. It took him a second longer than it should for him to realize that it had been the basement door being closed a little too hard.

Danny's mom poked her head in the kitchen. "Look at you all! I'm so proud of you working together! Anyway, we're going out for a while to check out some things. Be back in a bit!" She then retreated, and the sound of the front door being opened and closed could be heard soon after.

The inhabitants of the kitchen turned back to what they were doing as if nothing had happened.

"What do you think that was about?" Tucker asked idly.

Danny just shrugged and continued mixing.

* * *

 

Without (much) further mishap (there were a few cases of nearly dropped plates and dishes due to Danny's newly acquired powers of intangibility, but those weren't really mention worthy), dinner time finally came. The extensions on the kitchen table were pulled out and the extra chairs were brought out of storage and set up around the table. Jazz had meticulously placed each setting, putting a little card on each plate stating which person should be seated where. She had thought through each placement in hopes to prevent the debacle that had happened last year (which is another story for another time).

The Fenton parents were already seated at the table, but still had their minds in the lab, continuing to talk about ghosts and future ghost tech they were going to build. Danny wasn't really sure; he was just trying to ignore them.

All the platters and dishes of food were nearly set out on the table except for a few, and Danny and Dan helped Jazz with those. Jazz had already forced Tucker to take his seat, claiming he was a guest and had already helped more than was necessary. Of course Tucker said it was no big deal, but Jazz was adamant.

"Those are the vegan biscuits. Put those next to the lentil loaf for Sam," Jazz instructed.

"Sure thing, captain," Danny muttered sarcastically.

"Also, put out the butternut quash casserole next to that while I go call Sam and Danielle down." Danny would have rolled his eyes at his sister's micromanagement, but he was suddenly reminded he had things to worry about.

The last time he had gone to check up on Danielle, she hadn't looked much better than that morning. She was still for some reason as pale as a sheet, and shivers continued to relentlessly rack her small frame. He knew he would have to suffer a shit storm from Jazz for not telling her sooner. He just hoped his parents didn't make a huge fuss over it as well.

Danny glanced back at his older brother. "We've got a storm coming."

"It had to roll in sooner or later," Dan said nonchalantly.

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one that's going to be hearing about it for days on end," Danny grumbled.

Danny watched anxiously as Jazz went to the foot of the stairs and yelled for the two girls to come down. She came back into the kitchen to stand beside him to inspect his work. "That's good. Now can you go get—"

"Hey, Jazz?" He said cutting her off.

"What?" she answered, only slightly annoyed by his interruption.

"I probably should have told you before—but anyway, Danielle is kinda—" he cut himself off when Danielle shuffled into the kitchen with Sam, looking tired and grumpy and just generally unwell.

She didn't look much better than she did the last time he had checked on her, but it at least seemed like she was getting a little of her color back.

Their mother noticed her entrance and started to say 'hello' but stopped when she saw the condition her youngest daughter was in. "Are you alright, sweetie?"

"I'm fine," Danielle mumbled as she sat down in her place at the table.

"Are you sure?" their mother asked.

"Yes, mom," she responded in a bored tone.

Maddie was about to further question Danielle's claim but Jack pulled her back into the conversation, his daughter's statement being enough for him. He usually was a good dad, but he could be oblivious sometimes, especially when he was distracted by his work, exactly like he was at the moment.

Jazz turned to Danny with a look that was a mixture of worry and anger, two things that he really didn't like to see on Jazz's face separate, much less together. "Why didn't you tell me she was sick? She could be contagious! And did you even administer the proper medicine?" she hissed angrily.

"She asked me not to tell. She didn't want anyone to worry!" Danny said making a helpless gesture. "Besides, it's probably not contagious. And what medicine was I supposed to give her anyway? A magic healing pill?"

Jazz then turned to Dan with a frown. "I assume you were in on this as well?"

"Well, yeah, naturally," Dan said with a shrug.

Jazz rubbed her brow as if a headache was brewing there. "Did you at least give her something? Did you make her some herbal tea, or give her some Tylenol or ibuprofen if she has a fever?"

"She doesn't have a fever, but I did give her some ibuprofen," Danny answered.

Jazz let out a long sigh. "Just go sit down. Both of you."

They quickly did as told, not wanting to inspire anymore wrath from their sister than was absolutely necessary.

Danny sat down in his place in between his dad at the head of the table and Danielle on his right. "How are you doing?" he asked his twin.

She turned to him with an annoyed look. "My joints hurt and I feel old."

"Should I have made you some herbal tea?" Danny asked.

His twin made a face. "Ew, no, that stuff is gross."

Dinner was finally served, Jack predictably serving himself heaping helpings. Danny only gave himself a little at first, but he quickly found out he had a bigger appetite than he thought. The same seemed to go for Danielle as well and they both ended up mimicking their fathers eating habits. Jazz could only stare across the table at them in disgust.

About halfway through the dinner, right after narrowly avoiding another heated debate with Sam and Tucker about their preferred diets, Danny finally tuned into his parents long winded conversation about their work when he heard his mother say, "...long term effects of ectoplasm."

"Wait, what did you say?" Danny asked.

His mother gave him a startled look. It wasn't every day that one of their children showed interest in their work. "Um, I was just saying we're not sure about what the effects of long term exposure to ectoplasm would be. I was just discussing this with your father because today while we were out taking data around town, we found that there is already a surprising amount of ambient ectoplasm contaminating about a six mile radius. Nothing harmful, of course, but it is a bit confusing."

Jack jumped in, saying, "You see we built a door out of a special compound we found that repels ectoplasm. It should keep most of the ectoplasm in the zone, but like your mother said its all around town already!"

The image of the green vortex opening up in the sky while he was walking home yesterday came back to Danny's mind. "Um, do you think it could be because more portals are opening up?" he asked in a quiet voice.

Jack had just been about to shovel another bite of food in his mouth, but at Danny's question the fork fell back onto the plate with a loud clang. His mother stared at him with an almost terrified expression. All at once it became deathly quiet at the table.

"What would make you say that?" Maddie asked.

Suddenly at the center of attention, Danny fidgeted. He wished he hadn't said anything, but it was too late to take it back now. "I-I think I saw another portal open up when I walked Sam and Tucker home last night. It didn't last very long, it closed right back up, but...it definitely looked like another ghost portal."

Everyone was still for a moment, and then Danny's parents burst into motion. They left the table so fast they were almost a blur. Maddie just left her half eaten plate while Jack actually took his with him.

"Thanks for the dinner, Jazzypants. It was top notch!" their dad threw over his shoulder on his way out of the kitchen.

There was another moment of quiet before Jazz threw her napkin on the table. "Thanks a lot, Danny! Why did you have to throw them a bone?! Why couldn't you just keep your mouth shut for once?!"

The whole table was stunned but only Danny and Danielle really understood the gravity of Jazz's outburst. Danny could count on one hand the times he remembered Jazz blowing up like that.

She pushed her chair back with a screech and started to leave the table, muttering under her breath, "I just wanted one evening to be somewhat normal!"

"Jasmine," Vlad called, standing up from the table.

She stopped at the entrance into the kitchen, her posture rigid and her shoulders shaking ever so slightly. "What...?" she hissed.

"Please, come sit back down. You orchestrated this lovely meal. It would be a shame for you not to enjoy it too."

Jazz stayed in the entryway for another moment then turned around and walked back to the table avoiding everyone's eyes. She sat back in her seat wordlessly.

"I'm sorry, Jazz," Danny said in hardly more than a whisper.

She shrugged, and said without looking up from her plate, "It's nothing. No big deal."

The rest of the meal was deathly silent.

* * *

 

Christmas Day was uneventful compared to the days preceding. There were no major mishaps, only a few slips and trips that his new found powers were responsible for, and those could easily be passed off as his usual clumsiness. Mostly the Fentons and Dan and Vlad Masters hung around in the living room after opening presents, watching one Christmas movie after the other. Danielle's condition even improved. Her temperature rose to a more normal degree and the ugly lesions on her arm started clearing up a bit.

Unfortunately, Jazz's mood on the other hand didn't seem to improve at all. She was still quite sore over the disastrous Christmas Eve dinner and stayed unusually quiet for the majority of the day. Even the day after Christmas, she spent most of her time sulking in her room, reading psychology journals and other things of the like and only came out to say a bland goodbye to Dan and Vlad before they left.

Guilt plagued Danny. He felt like he was the main cause of all the sudden unrest in the household, but he was clueless in how to make it up to Jazz.

He turned over in his bed to glare at the red digits of his alarm clock. They read one thirty a.m.. In all fairness, Danny's sleeping habits weren't that great even before all the craziness that happened two days ago, but this was insane. He had been laying in his bed sifting through all the bullshit of the past few days for two hours now. He was going to have to get some kind of sleep aid in the future.

But for now...well, he was just going to give up for now. Maybe around two or three he would start feeling tired. Danny sighed and got out of bed. He guessed in the meantime he could get a snack from the kitchen.

He quietly made his way to the kitchen, remarkably able not to trip on anything. He saw that the kitchen light was on but thought nothing of it (it was regularly left on in case Jack wanted to come down for a late night snack, which he regularly did) until he saw Jazz sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of what looked like tea beside her on the table, and her nose pressed into a book. She didn't even notice him until he cleared his throat.

She startled, nearly dropping her book, and looked up with a slight frown. When she saw that it was Danny, she averted her gaze.

"I see I'm not the only one having problems with sleep," she said quietly.

"No, I think just about everyone in this house is," Danny said rubbing the back of his neck. "I think I even heard the thick Australia accent of Steve Irwin coming from Danielle's room."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "How many times do you think she's rewatched those old tapes of 'The Crocodile Hunter'?" Jazz asked with a slight smile.

"Oh, at least a thousand," Danny said with a deadpan expression.

Jazz gave a small chuckle but sobered quickly. "Danny, I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked with a small frown.

"For blowing up at you during dinner, and for taking so long to apologize. It was very immature of me on both accounts," she said solemnly.

"It's alright, Jazz," Danny said. "We all get a little high strung around Christmas time."

"But that is no excuse," Jazz argued. "You didn't get up and leave the table during Christmas dinner, our parents did, and I should not have blamed you for their actions."

"It's okay, Jazz, really," Danny said.

Jazz looked like she wanted to continue to argue about her guiltiness, but Danny quickly changed the subject. "So...whatcha got there," he said pointing at her cup.

"My tea? It's just a herbal blend with some valerian extract in it. I bought it a while ago but haven't actually tried it until now. Do you want me to fix you a cup?" She said the last part somewhat skeptically.

"Um, sure. Tea is supposed to be calming, right?"

Jazz shrugged. "Well, not all teas, but this particular blend should be."

"Good because I'm pretty desperate at this point to get some sleep."


	5. Feel the Outside Turning In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI the title comes from Tool's "Forty-Six & 2"

As the mansion came into view, the sinking feeling of dread made its self known in Dan's stomach. It was supposed to be his home, and after all the drama that had gone on at his mother's house, he should be glad he could finally lock himself in his room for some much needed peace and quiet. Mostly he just felt overwhelming loneliness and uncertainty. He also had a bad feeling that many sleepless nights were ahead of him. He'd have to see what he could sneak out of his dad's bar for that.

As soon as Vlad parked the car, Dan quickly got out, glad to be free of the musical stylings of Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, and other misguided musicians that were popular in the dark era of disco.

He popped the trunk and took out his duffle bag. He almost made it to the front door before Vlad called his name. "I've been meaning to ask you something," Vlad said catching up to him. "What happened to your jacket? The one I got you for your birthday?"

Dan's heart nearly jumped into his throat thinking that Vlad had somehow seen the ruined scrap of hide that was left of his jacket. "What do you mean?" he asked just barely keeping his voice calm.

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it's below freezing out here and you're only in shirtsleeves. Plus, you’ve hardly taken that thing off since I bought it for you almost two months ago."

Dan honestly hadn't noticed the cold, which now that he thought about it, was really weird seeing as it was 26th of December in Wisconsin.

Thinking up a believable story quickly, he said, "I put it in my bag by accident and didn't see the point of taking it out until we got home. What's a little cold anyway?" Dan mentally cursed himself for letting a nervous chuckle slip at the end.

Vlad didn't look completely convinced, but he apparently wasn't suspicious enough to ask further questions.

Dan was left in peace to make the climb up the stairs to his room. Once there he threw his duffle bag down on the floor, deciding he'd deal with it later. He took a moment to look around his room, his walls still covered in posters from his favorite bands, AC/DC, Metallica, and Suicidal Tendencies, just to name a few. Nothing had changed.

He was about to kick off his boots when he caught sight of his reflection in the full body mirror hanging from his wall. Surprisingly, much like his room, nothing had changed there either.

He was caught up on how...normal he still looked. Dan inspected his reflection further trying to find something different about himself but found nothing. It was almost ironic how normal and same he looked on the outside when he certainly didn't feel the same. He felt like something had awakened inside of him.

"I give up," he muttered, and with a sigh, flopped down on his bed.

To chase the troublesome thoughts from his mind, he turned on his stereo and cranked up the harsh rhythm of whatever heavy metal CD he left in last. Even with the music blaring, he soon found himself drifting off to sleep.

* * *

 

Dan woke with a weight pressing on his chest. A purring, fluffy weight.

"Madeline, get off! You're crushing me!" Dan groaned.

Madeline, or Maddie, named after the main character in his favorite book series as a child (and also, but he would never tell anyone, partially because it was his mother's name) was an absolutely enormous white Maine Coon, who frequently tried to murder him in his sleep by crushing him to death.

Dan hoisted the near twenty pound cat off his chest and sat up. Maddie purred and rubbed against him as he blinked the sleep from his eyes. He sighed and finally gave her the head rubs she was looking for.

A smile warmed his face. "Yeah, I missed you too," he said. He winced when his voice scratched uncomfortably.

He realized then that his throat was about as dry as the Sahara desert and tasted like something had crawled into it and died. Plus, a headache was forming behind his eyes, which he was sure was from nicotine withdrawal. He wouldn't dare smoke around his mother's house, so this was about day three of going without a cigarette. Hydration was the priority for the moment, but he could probably sneak out for a smoke while he was at it.

He made his hand intangible and phased it through the wall behind his bed. He then pulled out a pack of cigarettes he had hidden there from his dad. Dan paused for a moment to look at his hand now cradling the pack of Marlboro.

He had kept his powers a secret alone for years. In the past it had been harder to use his powers, but after the accident it was so easy. It was like they were right there waiting for him in the back of his mind. The consequences that once accompanied using his powers seemed to have gone away, as well.

He learned around the age of fifteen that he could turn himself intangible and invisible with a bit of concentration. If he pushed too hard he would feel physical affects like headaches, fatigue, and often ravenous hunger. The longer he held intangibility or invisibility or the greater the area he made it affect his body, the worse the after effects. One time he had snuck out of class and was almost caught by a teacher, only just saving himself by turning completely invisible. He could hardly keep his eyes open when he finally did go back to class.

He had never told his father or for that matter his mother because he didn't want to change in their eyes. Even if they did accept him weirdness and all, he knew they would never think of him the same way. And it might just amplify how much of a mistake he was. He was born only a few years after his father's lab accident, after his parents had rushed into a hasty marriage, and his father was no doubt still suffering some side affects from said accident. Everything was just so chaotically put together that he should never have been born. Now he was having to pay for his parents’ mistakes.

Dan came out of his thoughts and realized that he was almost crushing the pack of cigarettes and eased up. He sighed and shoved the pack in his pant's pocket. He stood up from his bed and made his way out of the room, grabbing a jacket just before he left. Only a little more than half awake and with Maddie right behind him, Dan climbed down stairs to the kitchen.

Halfway through filling up a glass from the tap, Dan noticed a note on the granite countertop. It was addressed to him from his father and said that an emergency came up in his office in Green Bay and that he'd be home around eight o'clock.

Dan crumpled up the note. "Figures, you just couldn't wait to go right back to work."

He threw the wad of paper in the trash and walked out of the kitchen. He was in sudden dire need to relieve his cravings.

* * *

 

Dan stood outside, ignoring the cold and took another drag from his cigarette. He was watching the sun go down and the stars come out, feeling like he was the only person in the universe.

He was suddenly and rudely yanked out of his brooding when the front door opened, revealing the older of the two maids they had hired. Dan let out a sigh of relief upon seeing it was just her. "Renata, you scared me," he said without any real reprimand in his voice.

"I can't say that I'm very sorry, mi hijo. You shouldn't be out here, and on the front porch! Are you trying to get caught?" the middle aged woman said with a her hands on her hips.

"Dad said he wouldn't be home until eight, and you already know about my vice. I don't see a problem," he said dryly.

Renata raised an eyebrow. "Did I ever tell you about my cousin who died from lung cancer?" she asked.

Dan rolled his eyes. "Oh, however could I forget about your poor cousin Martín, who died a long painful death from lung cancer?" he said in a painfully dry voice.

"When am I going to get it through your thick head?" she asked sadly.

"Probably never," Dan answered, blowing out a puff of smoke.

"I have half a mind to tell your father," Renata said pointing a finger threateningly.

"You always have half a mind. Tell me when you have a whole mind to tell him and then I'll worry," Dan said, idly inspecting his cigarette.

He looked back to Renata when she was quiet for too long and saw that she was scrutinizing him with a frown.

"What?" he asked a little too sharply.

The maid shook her head. "Something about you has changed," she stated.

There was absolutely no way she could know what had happened to him, nonetheless, Dan's heart began to beat in time to the Minute Waltz.

"What an interesting thing to suddenly say," he said with faked calm as he took another drag from his cigarette. "What makes you say that?"

Renata shook her head. "You're becoming more like your father, I think."

Dan almost let out a sigh of relief. "You can stop trying to scare me now. You're actually beginning to succeed. Becoming my father is one of my worst nightmares."

"Then you should be terrified. You're becoming more like him every day," she said with a teasing smile.

He gave her an unamused look. "Good night, Renata," he said dryly.

"One more thing," she said holding up a finger.

"What is it?" Dan asked boredly as he started to put the cigarette back to his lips only for it to be snatched away.

Renata dropped the cigarette, put it out with the heel of her shoe, and then swept it off the porch with her foot. Dan's surprised expression quickly morphed into one of exasperated acceptance. He should have known from past experience that he needed to at least stay three feet away to avoid such an occurrence.

"You know, you just wasted a dollar."

"Yes, but I'm sure you can buy more. A dollar is less than pocket change for you," the Latino woman said as she started down the stone steps. When she reached her old Nova she said, "I will break you of that habit eventually."

"I'm almost certain you won't, but I admire your perseverance," Dan replied.

As soon the taillights of her car were hidden behind the thick trees lining the long winding driveway, Dan pulled out another cigarette.

When the cigarette was finally smoked down to its butt, all that remained of the sun's light was a turquoise glow on the horizon.

Dan sighed, his breath fogging in the thirty degree air. He put out the cigarette on the underside of the marble banister so his father wouldn't notice any scorch marks and become suspicious. Vlad was, to put it lightly, very paranoid.

Vlad had his own vices being an alcoholic, but he was adamant about Dan staying on the path of sobriety. A fat lot that did, but Dan didn't want to listen to the potential tongue lashing he would get if his dad ever found out. And God forbid his mother found out. He knew he was already tainted in her eyes. He didn't want to make it any worse than it already was.

Dan went inside, but before he could even close the door, a sudden sensation formed in his chest, making him forget about it entirely. The sensation wasn't completely alien to him, but it was much more intense than he remembered. Sometimes a spot of heat would form in his chest at random times, and he would morbidly joke with himself that he probably had some congenital disease. This on the other hand was as if a mini sun had suddenly ignited inside him, though for some reason he still couldn't exactly call it painful.

What surprised him more was when the heat began to slither up his throat. More shocking still was the red mist that came from his nose and mouth.

As he looked at the scarlet mist curling in front of his face, his brain refused to form a coherent thought. Then he burst into movement, lunging for the large oval mirror on the wall. He leaned most of his weight into one hand placed beside the mirror. The other hand gripped his chest where the ball of heat was still present and was now spreading.

Something was happening to him, and it terrified him. His breaths were coming out in panicked pants now.

If only he had known that he was simply changing on instinct in response to another ghost in his presence for the first time since the accident. He might have gained some comfort from it—or maybe not.

An immense heat washed over him, and he thought for a terrifying second that he was going to pass out before a pale red ring of light formed around his waist and split, the two rings traveling up and down his body.

When the stars faded from his vision, Dan was shocked by what he now saw in the mirror. It was just like what Danny's friends had described when he first came out of the portal. His clothes seemed to have even reverted back to the exact same ones he had worn during the accident, though they had inverted color. Excluding the formerly white t-shirt he had worn, all of his clothes had bleached white; his pants, boots, and jacket. Even his hair had turned white. His eyes had become a vivid bright red that seemed to glow, and his skin had adopted a blue hue. His color scheme wasn't the only thing that changed. His ears had become markedly more pointed, and he now had an ethereal glow around his entire body.

He let out a hysterical sounding chuckle. Earlier, he had looked for some kind of change in his appearance and was disappointed when he found nothing. Maybe he shouldn't have looked for something he didn't really want to see.

A voice suddenly said to Dan's right, "Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit."

Dan whipped around to see a rather short green man who was faintly see-through and was floating about two feet off the ground. The man—or ghost was also wearing a wedge of cheese on his head and a robe a king might wear if said king was in kids cartoon. Dan knew instinctively that this had to be the late Dairy King and the former owner of the mansion, not only because he had seen that stupid portrait of the former house owner his father had hanging in the lobby every time he came down stairs, but he was almost certain he had seen the ghost before.

"I was right! I really did see you in the kitchen that one time! And Dad tried to convince me it was just my imagination." Unless this was all just his imagination too and he was going insane. It was a very vivid hallucination if that was the case. Or maybe he was still asleep and was dreaming. Yeah, that could be it.

"Oh boy, did I get in trouble that day," the ghost said fidgeting.

"Wait, what? Who would you get in trouble with? You're a ghost," Dan said with a raised eyebrow. Were there some leaders of the ghost world that forbade a ghost to be seen by a human or something?

"Oh dear, I've said too much haven't I?" the Dairy King said covering his mouth with his hand. "I better skedaddle before something else slips. I didn't even mean to shown my face! I was just so shocked to see that you finally got your... Anyway, goodbye!" The ghost then left, floating directly up into the ceiling.

"Hey, wait a second!" Dan said before flying after him. He hadn't truly realized what he had done until he was floating about two inches above the carpet of the second floor of the house. He was momentarily distracted with his own amazement until he realized what he was doing.

He flew in the direction he thought the ghost had gone. "You can't just say something like that then leave without telling me anything!" he shouted at the empty air.

"Oh, yes I can!" the Dairy King said as he popped his head through one of the paintings decorating the walls.

Dan jumped and ended up on the other side of the fairly wide corridor. Dan recovered around the same time that the Dairy King retreated back into the wall, and he quickly gave chase after the ghost. He ended up flying through several rooms and all three levels of the house—even startling Maddie who had gone back to Dan's room—until he finally caught the former Dairy King. And he only smacked into a few walls in the process. That should be considered quite an achievement for a beginner.

"Look, I can't tell you anything!" the ghost said when Dan caught him by the front of his robe. "It's not for me to tell! Goodbye, now!" The ghost phased out of Dan's grasp and shot up through the ceiling again.

Dan flew after the Dairy King again, flying up until he found himself floating above the roof of the house alone. Dan let out a frustrated growl when he realized he had lost the ghost. He had a somewhat tenuous grasp on his powers and new found abilities, but he knew enough at this point to tell that he couldn't even sense the Dairy King anymore. It was like he had just dropped out of existence.

He was about to call it quits and float back down until he took another glance at his surroundings. The trees were outlined with silver light cast upon them by a swollen full moon, and his current position made the surrounding woods around the mansion look like a turbulent silver sea. He looked eastward, and noticed he could even see the lights of the nearest town in the distance.

A large part of him wanted to test out his new found powers, maybe even fly to next town over, but he knew he needed to figure out how he could change back before his dad got home. He sunk back into the house and found his way back to his room. After a moment of concentration and an near panic attack when he couldn't figure it out at first, he finally changed back into normal human form.

He turned to Maddie who was watching him with wide eyes from his bed. "What're you looking at? Do you think I'm a freak too?" he said dryly.

At that Maddie stood with a meow and padded over to him. He pet her head with a smile. "No, of course you wouldn't. You're just a cat. Societal construct means nothing to you."

Dan sat down on the edge of his bed and allowed the white fluff ball to climb onto his lap. Of course it was only then that he realized that he had left his glass of water on the counter in the kitchen. He debated internally with himself if he should disturb Maddie and go get the glass or if he should just leave it. His father had a weird obsession about things needing to be in the order he likes and always got all up in arms whenever Dan left anything out. Not wanting to have to hear any of his bullshit later, Dan sighed and lifted Maddie off of him.

"Sorry Madds, I gotta get up," he said when she mowed in complaint.

Dan walked all the way to the kitchen again without complication. It was only when he was about to take a drink from his almost abandoned glass of water did Vlad speak up. "Hello, son."

Dan nearly dropped his glass of water he was so startled. He hadn't even seen Vlad in the living room when he passed the open archway. Dan turned to see his father now standing in the threshold of kitchen.

"Father, I didn't know you were home yet," Dan said, with faked calm.

"I could tell," Vlad said, ill concealed amusement making the corner of his mouth twitch. "Anyway, I'd like to ask you something."

"What?" Dan asked, barely able to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He could already tell that whatever his dad wanted he wouldn't like.

"I've been putting off visiting my office in LA for over a month now, and seeing as you're on winter break I'd like for you to come with me. We'll be leaving day after tomorrow."

"What? No, no I can't!" Dan blurted before he even fully realized what he was saying.

Vlad lifted an eyebrow. "Why not? I thought you liked Los Angeles."

That was a good question. Why exactly couldn't he go? Well, for one, he didn't want to be in close quarters with his father right now. He had just gotten some kind of a power boost that he wasn't entirely comfortable with yet and he wasn't sure his powers wouldn't act up around Vlad. Another thing, he had to tell his half siblings about what had happened and perhaps ask if they were experiencing the same thing, and this just wasn't the kind of thing you talked about over the phone. Sure it'd be an eight hour drive to Amity Park but he'd rather suffer from that and his father's potential tongue lashing he'd get than try and miserably fail to explain what had happened over the phone. But of course he couldn't tell Vlad any of this, and at the moment he couldn't think of a good excuse to get him out of the trip to California.

"I just...don't feel like it right now," Dan said lamely.

"And why is that?" Vlad asked with a probing look.

Dan shrugged, feigning calmness. "We've already been gone for almost a week. I'd like to rest a little before I have to get up and go again."

"You can rest in LA. Besides wouldn't it be nice to get away from this cold weather for a while?" Vlad said with a light tone, but he stared Dan down with glacial eyes that left no room for argument.

Dan glared and stormed out of the kitchen, taking no care to not bump into Vlad as he brushed by him out of the doorway.

* * *

 

Vlad watched his son's retreating form with an emotionless expression, but once he was out of view, Vlad heaved a sigh an let his shoulders slump. He went back into the living room and grabbed a decanter filled with amber liquid off the bar, pouring himself a glass full. He downed it in only a few gulps.

As he leaned against the bar, contemplating his situation, the ghost of the Dairy King appeared. Vlad instantly straightened, playing as if his momentary lapse in anything but pure stoicism had never happened.

"What do you want?" he asked a little too harshly.

The ghost fidgeted slightly then asked, "I'm just a bit confused myself. Why are you leaving so soon? Going to your office across the country isn't that urgent, is it?"

"Eavesdropping were you?" Vlad asked raising an eyebrow.

"Ah, well, I didn't mean to pry. I just overheard from the other room," the ghost said with a sheepish shrug.

Vlad hummed and gave a small nod, taking the Dairy King's statement at face value. The ghost had at least not been in the kitchen or Vlad would have sensed him.

"To answer your question, I need to keep an eye on him; see if he slips up and reveals something. I have a sneaking suspicion that he, Danny or Danielle tampered with the Fenton's ghost portal to make it work."

Danielle was the only one he even remotely saw experiencing symptoms of overexposure to ectoplasm, which was very unlucky on her part, and frustrating on Vlad's. He hardly ever got to see the Fenton children, making it hard to reach her and tell her what was happening to her, and harder still to even determine if she had truly transformed. There was also the looming threat of Jack and Maddie Fenton, though Jack was the much bigger threat in his mind than Maddie.

But perhaps all three children had been exposed. Hell, maybe even the twin's two friends had been exposed. Vlad stifled a sigh at the thought. That would make things incredibly difficult, but he supposed it was a possibility. Everyone could have a different reaction to ectoplasm and thus not show the clear cut signs he had.

"Er...Vlad? You still there buddy?" The Dairy King said.

Vlad snapped out of his reverie and looked back at the ghost. "I apologize. I was just thinking. Anyway, have you noticed anything off with Dan?"

* * *

 

Vlad looked at the Dairy King with cold probing eyes, a trait he and his son shared (although Dan didn't use such a look as often). The ghost was careful not to fidget in front of Vlad.

"Maybe a little. But he always acts a little funny after Christmas. This just isn't the time of year for him," the Dairy King said, using a half truth.

The Dairy King had kept the boy's secret for almost four years and he wasn't about to give it up now. It wasn't his secret to tell, just as it wasn't for him to tell the boy his father's.

Vlad sighed again. "Well, I suppose it can't be easy."

The ghost didn't quite understand Vlad's meaning. It wasn't easy for Dan? Or it wasn't easy to solve the mystery he now found himself with? The Dairy King didn't bother to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the really late update. I just got over the worst case of writers block. Anyway, I hope I can get out the next chapter quicker. See you guys soon (hopefully)!


	6. One Foot In the Grave

Only a couple days after Christmas, strange reports had already began to circulate. Sightings of weird lights in the sky happened all over town and a few people even managed to get videos of them before they quickly disappeared. Even stranger, the old lady down the street from the Fenton residents, Mrs. Hammerfel, said she saw a green octopus-like creature floating in her backyard when she went to let her dog out to relieve itself, claiming it was "monsters from outer space." Most people took that as a sign that the aged lady was finally losing it, but Danny (and the other Fentons sans Jazz) knew better. Jack and Maddie talked almost nonstop about how ghosts were most definitely escaping from the Ghost Zone into the real world.

Currently, It was Sunday (otherwise known as Slasher Movie Sunday) so of course the four teens sat in Danny’s room in front of his tv watching old horror movies that were absolutely soaked in blood and gore, just like they liked them. It served as a good distraction, if nothing else.

“Hey Danielle, I forgot to ask this mourning but how’s your burns?” Danny asked as he shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

Danielle glanced away from the TV to her twin. “The blisters look almost normal now, so I'm going to take that as a good sign. But I still have this weird ache in my bones that I’m pretty sure was caused by the accident too. My chills are gone, though.”

Danny gave her a small worried look, but turned back to the movie without saying anything.

"You don't think you're dying, do you?" Tucker said nonchalantly from his place on the rug in front of Danny's bed (his usual spot only a foot and a half away from the TV screen). His mind was still mostly in the movie. "You know from like radiation poisoning or something?"

"Well, I sure fucking hope not," Danielle said, as she reached down and swatted off his beret as punishment for asking. "But if I am, I'm taking you with me so I don't get lonely," she said in such a darkly serious voice that it even made Danny shiver, though he knew she was just messing around.

Tucker turned around and gave her an anxious glance. "You're just joking, right?"

She gave him a sly smile. "Maybe...”

"Aren't we all dying though? Slowly but surely," Sam commented morbidly from her perch in Danny's desk chair. "It's almost comforting how, despite all our differences, we'll all be united in death one day."

Danny's mouth twisted into a slight grimace. "Kids, could you lighten up a little?" he said, effectively ending the morose conversation.

Finally the heroine with ridiculously pristine hair and makeup despite being almost killed several times, outsmarted the bad guy and killed him, ending the movie. As the credits rolled, Danny stood up and stretched. “I think I'm gonna get more snacks before the next movie starts. Who wants to come with?”

“Hey, don’t we have a frozen pizza?” Danielle asked standing and stretching in a fashion almost identical to her brother.

Danny perked up at that. “You know, I think we do.”

They all decided that they would come down to the kitchen together, which ended up being a colossal mistake. Jack Fenton was practically waiting in ambush for them.

As he bodily dragged the twins down the stairs and into the basement, Sam and Tucker awkwardly followed behind.

“Can’t you just show Jazz whatever it is?” Danny said in a strangled voice.

“Nope, no can do. She and your mother went out. To the store I think? I hope they come back with some fudge,” Jack said distractedly.

Four chairs were quickly pulled out and four teens were just as quickly (and near forcefully) seated in them.

“I overheard you asking Maddie about ghosts the yesterday, and I think I know what that means. You kids want to hunt ghosts!” Jack Fenton boisterously said.

Danny actually had asked his mother about ghosts yesterday. Well, about ectoplasm mostly. He had foolishly braved the kitchen and had been corned by her, thankfully she hadn't dragged him to the lab like his dad did. She did however subject him to a thirty minute lecture about their findings on ectoplasm which he only half listened to. Danny had made the mistake paying half attention (a half more than he usually did) and asking one question, apparently. He didn't even remember what the question was anymore, or if he had even gotten an answer.

Jack continued. “Knowing you four want to go into the family business does my heart good.” He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.  
  
“Actually, Dad, I want to be an astronaut,” Danny timidly interjected.  
  
“And I’m actually really leaning towards zoology,” Danielle said, crossing her arms.  
  
“I was really into ghosts,” Sam commented as she inspected her black painted finger nails, “but they’re so mainstream now.”  
  
Danny rolled his eyes good-naturedly at his ghoulish friend. Leave it to Sam to hate anything popular. She had the mindset that people were generally stupid, so if something was liked by a lot of people that must mean it was stupid, too.  
  
“What about you Tucker,” Jack asked the boy to the right of Danny.  
  
A cocky smile spread over Tucker’s face, and he leaned back in his chair trying to act cool. “And waste all these looks?”  
  
“Oh, yeah, your looks would be much better suited to play the monster in a bad horror film,” Sam snarked with a smirk.   
  
“Ooooh, Tucker, do you need some ice for that burn?” Danielle added with faked concern, while Danny tried not to laugh at Tucker’s indignant cry.  
  
“Well, if you kids change your minds,” Jack announced, interrupting the argument that was bound to erupt, “the first thing you’ll need to know…” Jack went on to lecture about ghosts, which the four teens mostly ignored.

As his father rambled, Danny’s mind drifted to other places. The teen glanced at the ghost portal seated in the wall at the far end of the lab. It was closed by enormous mechanical doors at the moment, but he vividly remembered the pool of glowing green mist swirling in a constant vortex.

Danny snapped to attention when his father cursed loudly. Jack turned around with a sheepish look. He must have forgotten there were young innocent minds in the room—or, well, young minds that weren't exactly innocent anymore.

“Sorry kids. It looks like I’ve misplaced the Fenton Thermos. Too bad, I really wanted to show it to you,” Jack said making a sad puppy-dog face. It was weird how a grown man of Jack’s enormous stature could pull it off so well.

The man shook off his disappointment and turned his attention to his two children. “Hey, have you two seen it lately? You know, I showed it to you earlier. It has Fenton on it and it catches ghosts—well, not yet, but I’m working on that.” He looked between Danny and Danielle expectantly as the teens wracked their brains. Danny (and for the most part Danielle as well) usually tried to forget about the inventions their parents made—especially now—but Danny would do anything to make his dad happy and get rid of the sad puppy face.

“Uh, I think I saw it last on the kitchen table,” Danny replied.

“Yeah, wasn't mom working on it?” Danielle said, jumping in.

“Thanks kids!” Jack beamed. He slapped Danny on the back, nearly unseating him, while conversely he gave Danielle a light kiss on the top of her head, and then raced out of the basement.

There was a short moment of silence until Sam turned to Danny and Danielle. “Are you guys okay?”

Danny glanced at his twin to see she was ringing her hands (at least she wasn't chewing her nails) and was warily eyeing the closed Ghost Portal. He suspected she felt much the same as he did. He badly wanted to curl up in a ball and never visit the lab again. Being down here made his skin crawl. It was bad enough that the tables were lined with equipment designed for hunting ghosts—beings which he had developed a strange sense of sympathy towards even though he had yet to meet one—but he also felt a strange pull from the ghost portal that was in no manner normal or even okay.

“Hey, ground control to Major Tom,” Sam said halfheartedly, trying to regain Danny’s attention.

Danny cursed inwardly. He had been drifting off a lot lately. It was probably some sort of trauma coping mechanism that Jazz would know about.

“I’m fine, Sam,” he said a little too defensively.

His goth friend crossed her arms and raised a questioning eyebrow at his snappish tone.

Danny gave an impatient huff. “I’m fine, really.” He turned to Danielle. “Are you?”  
  
Her attention whipped from the ghost portal to her brother. She nodded a little too quickly. “Yeah, yeah sure. Why wouldn't I be?”

“Is this the first time you've been down here since the accident?” Tucker asked.

Danny and Danielle nodded almost simultaneously.

“That sucks. I gotta admit this place is giving me the creeps too.” Tucker’s attention drifted away from his friends to the work bench piled with all sorts of gadgets. “Even though all this stuff is pretty cool.”

“Thanks Tucker for your thoughtful words,” Danny deadpanned.

Tucker’s attention was already honed in on the sic-fi looking gadgets on the workbenches—most of which probably didn’t work.

Sam rolled her eyes at Tucker’s antics and turned back to the Fenton twins. “Look, we have your back. You need to talk about it, I know it. It’ll make you feel better if you just let it all—Tucker put that down!” Danny and Danielle both jumped at her sudden shout. Danny looked to see what had gotten his goth friend so worked up. When he saw that Tucker was holding a large futuristic looking gun, Danny felt like her outburst was warranted.

“Yeah, Tucker. That’s probably not a good idea,” Danny commented.

“Most of your parent’s ghost stuff doesn’t work, anyway, right?” Tucker said still inspecting the weapon. “Hey, wouldn’t this be a badass as a weapon in Doom?” Of course Tucker would bring video games into this.

“Yeah, sure, but I really think you should put that down. Remember the last time we though something of my parents wouldn’t work?” Danny said standing up and taking a step towards his friend.

Tucker visibly sobered, all humor slipping from his face. “Okay, yeah, you’re right.” He started to put the gun down, but his finger slipped and accidentally pressed the trigger. At the moment they were all much too concerned with not getting hit by a ball of plasma that came out of the muzzle of the gun to have actually seen where the blast had landed.

“Tucker!” Sam, Danny, and Danielle shouted in unison.

“It was an accident! It’s heavy! It slipped!” Tucker said frantically, cringing away from the punch in the arm or kick in the shin that would either come from Sam or Danielle.

Danielle beat Sam to it, landing a firm punch on Tucker’s shoulder. “What the hell were you thinking!? You could have killed somebody!” she shouted, her voice shaking slightly.

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, attempting to get his heart to stop racing. “Let’s just put that aside for now and scope out the damage and try to fix it before my dad comes back.” Danny hated to think what his dad would do if he found out they had been messing around with potentially lethal objects.

Come to think of it, his dad had been gone for quite a while. Danny thought again about where he had seen the thermos last and remembered that he had seen his mom go off with it somewhere—likely to put it back in the lab. Oops. So he had sent his dad on a wild goose chase. Oh well.

The four teens began to look around to see what mess the blast made. They froze when they noticed the scorch marks on the control panel to the ghost portal.

The teens stood staring at the damaged panel, waiting for something to happen. They jumped in unison when sparks suddenly flew from the panel accompanied by a loud pop. The large doors then slowly began to open.

Danny was ready to go run up stairs and tell his dad that the portal was malfunctioning, but he couldn’t. He was frozen to the spot. Danielle, Sam, and Tucker seemed to be frozen in terror, as well.

The portal simply sat open for several moments, and the four teens started to relax. It was even peaceful how the luminous green mist swirled slowly. One could almost forget that it was extremely dangerous.

A sudden, tingling cold seized Danny, starting as a lump in his chest then migrated up through his throat. It was all topped off by a puff of cold steam issuing from his lips. Considering recent events, this new development couldn't mean anything good.

Danny’s suspicions were confirmed when glowing green tentacles slid out of the portal and wrapped around Danielle’s ankle—who was unfortunately the closest to the portal. Danny, Sam, and Tucker collectively yelled for Danielle as she was lifted high in the air.

The rest of the monster glided out of the portal. It looked vaguely like an octopus with a blobby head and wispy tentacles. Did animals have ghosts—or souls? Ghosts came from souls, right? Danny might have to pay more attention to his parents lectures in the future.

Danny snapped to action, and more out of instinct than anything else, he began to transform. The lump of cold in Danny’s chest intensified until the frigid sensation completely washed over him. A pale blue ring of light formed around his waist then split itself in two and traveled up and down his unimpressive frame.

Every one looked at him with shocked expressions. Even the octopus ghost looked startled for a moment before emitting a menacing hiss and lifted Danielle higher in the air.

Danny’s mind instantly snapped back to Danielle’s troubled state and he glared at the ghost. “Give me back my sister!” he shouted and lunged grab his twin.

Danny flew up to where the octopus ghost had suspended Danielle without even realizing it at first and grabbed her hands.

“Danny you're flying!” she said looking at him in awe.

“Wait, what?” he said before looking down and seeing that he was about four feet off the ground.

He had no time to think about how that was even remotely possible before he was caught by another one of the ghosts tentacles. The wispy appendage firmly curled around his waist.

Danny was surprised when a plasma blast shot from behind him hit the monster in the face. Danny glanced behind him to see Tucker had picked up the gun that had started all of this and was aiming it at the extradimensional monster.

Sam lunged to yank the gun out of Tucker’s grasp. “Tucker, stop! You might hit one of them!”

“I will not! I’m a level fifty sharp shooter in Doomed!” Tucker argued.

The octopus ghost (ectopus, maybe?) was at least distracted for a moment from Tucker blasting it in the face, and Danny managed to get free from it.

He punched it in the face—well, the globulous mass that he guessed was the face. The monster let out an earsplitting wail and finally let go of Danielle. Unfortunately for her, it was still holding her about four feet above the ground and Danny had no time to catch her.

He winced when she hit the floor with a soft thud. “Are you okay?”

Her only response was a raised middle finger.

“Yeah, she’s okay,” he mumbled to himself.

Before the ghost could grab him again, he flew clear to the other side of the room. He made a running—or flying start, actually—and slammed both feet into the ectopus's (yes, of course he was going to keep calling it that!) face sending it flying back through the portal.

Danny, now huffing from exertion, flew over to the damaged control panel. Hopping that some of the buttons still worked and that he wouldn’t make things worse, he began hitting what he thought was the “close” button. Thankfully, it worked and after a moment of frantically pressing the button, the doors closed.

Danny slid down the wall, involuntarily transforming back into his human self as he went. He looked up with wide eyes at his shaken friends, breathing heavily. “I-I think we’re safe now so…” He gave them a trembling smile and held up a thumbs-up, his hand shaking violently.

“Th-that was too close,” Sam quaked. “What was that thing? And did you just—“ The sound of the basement door opening cut her off.

The teens heads whipped towards the entrance to the basement, and they froze.

“Hey, kids?” Jack called down into the basement.

At a supernatural speed, Tucker put the blaster down and the four teens regained their seats.

“I hope you don’t mind I left you and your little friends down here so long,” Jack said reaching the bottom of the stairs. “Your mother came home and she bought fudge like I had hoped, and I got a little side tracked,” he said with a sheepish look.

“Oh, yeah, and your mother said she put the thermos back in here. Oh, well, guess I didn’t look hard enough. Its probably under a pile of junk or something. You should really clean up down here, Danny. That’s your chore, remember?” Jack said with a scolding look.

“Oh, uh, sorry dad,” Danny stammered, still slightly out of breath. “I’ll get on that in a little bit, I promise.”

“It’s all right. Now where were we? Oh, yeah, what exactly are ghosts? Well, traditionally they're thought of as the residual energy of a deceased person’s consciousness, but Maddie and I theorize that some ghosts may be—”

“Hey, Jack?” Maddie said sticking her head through the basement door. “I know you must be having a lot of fun telling the kids our new theories, but I really need to speak with you for a moment, is that alright?”

“Oh, yeah, sure thing, sweet cheeks!” Jack said with his usual enthusiasm.

Maddie came down all the way into the basement and turned to the still slightly shaking kids in the chairs. “Why don’t you go ahead and take your friends back up stairs?” she said to the twins. “We can continue this lesson on ghosts another time.”

They didn’t need to be asked twice and quickly booked it out of the basement back upstairs to Danny’s room.

Tucker being the last one through the door closed it quietly behind him. The four teens simply waited in silence hoping one of them would break it. Danny sat down on the edge of his bed letting out a slow breath and laying his hands on his knees as if he was bracing himself. He glanced over at his sister. She was seated in his desk chair, having drawn her knees up to her chest and was currently working on chewing her fingernails down to the quick.

“You know we should…we should probably talk about what happened in the lab just now,” Sam said, finally acknowledging the elephant in the room.

“T-talk about what?” Danny stammered, his fingers twitching on his knee. “Talk about how I’m probably dead? Okay cool. Then lets get started with what the fuck am I going to do?!”

“You’re not dead! You can’t be dead, Danny! Y-you don’t look dead at the moment! You changed back just like you did the first time,” Sam said.

“Well, what about back in the lab? I certainly didn't look alive then! Plus, Mom and Dad have plenty of theories about ghost being able to shape shift so…yeah…”

“Wouldn’t you be able to tell if you were dead though?” Tucker asked, his voice being a couple octaves higher than usual.

“I don’t know what being dead feels like, Tucker!” Danny said giving his friend a helpless look.

“Well…do you feel any different since the accident?” he asked.

Danny did indeed feel different. Cold, he felt cold, but on the inside, if that made any sense at all. He had tried to ignore it until then, and it wasn't even that noticeable at first, until the cold lump had intensified and consumed him back in the lab. Now he was keenly aware of it sitting right at home in his chest.

But he still got hungry, he still needed to sleep, and breath, and he was pretty sure he could feel his heart beating in his chest, especially now. He still had to preform all the bodily functions of a living person, so therefore he should be alive, right?

“I do feel different,” he answered slowly, “but…I don't feel dead. Ugh! I don’t know!” He threw up his hands in frustration.

“Maybe…you’re only like halfway dead?” Danielle said, speaking up for the first time since they had reached Danny’s room.

He looked over at her a little shocked that she had spoken. He had thought she had entered “Shutdown Mode” then what she said finally registered.

“Thats…that…that can't be possible! You can’t be half dead, Ellie! You either are or you aren’t!” he stammered.

“Ghosts are supposed to be impossible too, remember?” she said in a very serious, un-Danielle way.

“Man…if that’s true—that you're half dead, I mean—then that really gives the saying ‘one foot in the grave’ a new meaning,” Tucker said.

If looks could kill, Tucker would be dead a thousand times over from the look Sam gave him. She only turned her glare from the poor squirming techno geek because Danny burst into hysterical laughter.

He laughed so hard that his sides began to hurt and his eyes teared up. He was sure he was freaking his friends out, but he couldn't seem to stop the manic cackling.

“Shit, he’s loosing it,” Sam muttered.

“No, no, I’m good. I’m okay,” he said, his fit of laughter finally subsiding into giggles. He wiped a few tears from his eyes. He then stood up and clapped his hands. “Okay, whose up for finishing that slasher movie marathon!”

“Danny!” Sam said, giving him an incredulous look.

“What? Sunday’s almost over and we haven’t finished our weekly ritual! I want to at least get through all the Friday the 13th movies.”

“Danny, we have serious things to discuss,” Sam said. “More serious than watching cheese filled horror flicks!”

Danny was about to crack a joke probably going along the lines of ‘theres nothing more important than cheesy flicks,’ when Danielle said, “Crap…. What are we gonna do about Dan? We have to tell him about what happened.”

Danny’s expression instantly soured into a frown. “Why?” he grumbled.

“He might be going through the same things you are. He was right in the portal with you when it opened,” she said.

“Look, I am in no mood to—Ah!” he said, or started to say before he slipped right through the floor.

With a grunt, he hit the kitchen table, sprawling over the top of it. A string of muttered curses flowed from his mouth. And he thought he was finally getting over the whole “phasing through stuff at annoyingly inconvenient times” thing. He lifted his head and saw to his relief that there at least wasn’t anyone in the kitchen to watch him defy the laws of physics once again. He let his head fall back down onto the table surface and glared at the ceiling.

The sound of hurried footsteps coming down the stairs could be heard, and soon the anxious faces of his friends and twin sister were leaning over him.

“Dude, are you okay?” Tucker asked. Danny only responded with a glare. “Sorry, standard question,” Tucker amended.

Danny let out a sigh. “As I was saying…I’m not in the mood to deal with Dan right now.”

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Danielle said, nodding her head vigorously. “But we do have to tell him sometime, you know?”

Danny slowly closed his eyes. “Okay, fine, but could someone please help me up for now?”

* * *

 

“So what was so important that you needed to get the kids out of here?” Jack asked with a slight frown.

“Well, while I was out I took some readings around town. Jazz didn’t appreciate it one bit, but from what I gathered I’m really glad I did,” Maddie explained as she pulled out a small device that looked similar to a Geiger counter. It was dubbed Fenton Ectoplasmic Atmospheric Reader, or FEAR for short—a completely coincidental, and in Maddie’s opinion, unfortunate acronym. She looked up to her husband with a frown."Jack, I'm worried about this data. Just look at it!”

He took the device from her and scrolled through the display, humming to himself. “Well…that doesn't look good at all,” he said stating the obvious.

“You’re telling me! It’s starting to look more and more like our hypothesis is correct. Every last number points to a general weakening in the barrier between our world and the Ghost Zone, and it looks like its happening all over Amity Park."

“Got any ideas on how we can fix it, Madds?" Jack said, setting the FEAR down on one of the workbenches and wrapped an arm around her.

"We could...shut down the portal..." The words tasted bitter in her mouth, and she was hardly able to force them out.

It could possibly reverse the weakening by sealing up the original tear, but it was such a disheartening idea. They had worked years, suffering countless losses and now they had finally done it. However, if ghosts started escaping the Ghost Zone and began reeking havoc on the town, they would be morally obligated to stop it in any way possible, even if that meant throwing away years of work.

Jack took his arm from around her and took a step back. Maddie turned around in her chair and saw a horrified look firmly affixed to his face.

"Maddie, how could you say something like that?" he said, shock clear in his voice. "We've been working on this since college!”

"I know, but we can't allow potentially dangerous entities to enter our world! If turning off the portal will stop that then that's what we have to do!" Maddie said trying to keep a level tone but failing spectacularly.

She sighed and made herself mentally take a step back. "Look, maybe it's Amity Park. This place already had unusually high readings of ectoplasm long before we got here. The barrier was thin here even before the portal. That's why we decided to settle in this town in the first place. Maybe that's where we went wrong. Maybe the barrier was too thin. If we pick up and move another place and start over we could salvage some of our work. We just need to…” she trailed off and let out another sigh, letting her head fall into her hands.

Even if they could find another place to start over they might never get the portal up and running again. This time was no more than a fluke in the first place. Plus, what if they ran into the same problem again with ghosts escaping into their world?

"Maddie," Jack said laying a hand on his wife's shoulder. "We can figure this out. We always managed to work around these problems before. Anyway, this gives me the chance to make more gadgets to fight any ectoplasmic scum that comes through!” His voice became an excited boom.

Maddie gave him a watery smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. “Yes, I suppose for now we could at least develop some weaponry to fight these monsters while we think up a more permanent solution.”

Jack gave her a brilliant smile that just bordered on mania. “That’s the spirit!”


	7. Feeling Hot Hot Hot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda a short filler chapter, and kinda gross. Sorry about that. Also the title is inspired by "Feeling Hot Hot Hot" by The Merrymen.

Danielle walked into the bathroom where her twin was already brushing his teeth. She paused in the doorway, quickly debating in her head whether or not she should leave and come back later. When Danny finally noticed her she decided it was too late to make a seamless getaway anyhow and went on in.

“Excuse me,” she said as she moved to open the medicine cabinet above the sink. She pulled out a bottle of store-brand stomach pain relief medicine and quickly measured out a dose and downed it, Danny eyeing her the whole time.

He spat and rinsed then asked, “Having stomach problems?”

Danielle shrugged. “It's nothing to worry about. I just feel a little queasy. With all the activity earlier today it's no surprise,” she said as she readied her toothbrush to brush her teeth as well.

“Are you sure it's not deeper than that? You look kind of pail too…” Danny said as he started to reach a hand to feel of her forehand.

Danielle drew back with a glare. “Anny…’mm fine…” she muttered around the toothbrush in her mouth.

She should have just waited until he was gone, she thought. His stupid worrying self just had to make a big deal about it. She would do the same thing if the situation was reversed, of course, but it was annoying to be on the receiving end.

But to be completely honest, Danny's worry wasn't entirely unwarranted. The chills that she had just gotten over had come back with a vengeance, and a few new lovely symptoms had been added to the mix, which was intense bouts of vertigo and her stomach threatening to heave up its contents. But there wasn't anything Danny could do about it, so she just rather not tell him.

“Alright, sis. Goodnight,” Danny said, still a little worried. She mumbled a “goodnight” back before he left.

Danielle finished her task and left the bathroom, as well. Before she went to her bedroom she poked her head into Jazz’s room across the hall, who looked up from her book when the door squeaked slightly as it opened.

“Goodnight, Jazz,” she said, which was returned with a small smile.

Danielle then made her way to her bedroom and climbed into bed, situating her army of stuffed animals comfortably around her as if to keep guard from the dark forces that came out during the night.

* * *

 

Danielle woke with a start, heart pounding. It took her a good moment to realize the scream she was sure had woken her was just the jarring opening of the song literally titled Scream from the band Avenged Sevenfold, which she had set as her ringtone on the phone she had gotten for Christmas. In hindsight, using that as her ringtone was not a very smart move.

With a stream of muttered curses, and accidentally knocking a few of her stuffed animals off the bed, she picked up her phone to see that it was both two o'clock in the morning and that it was Dan calling her. She regretted giving him her new phone number now. “What the hell, Dan?” she muttered as she clicked the talk button and put the phone up to her ear. “I was asleep, you asshole. What do you want at two in the freaking morning?”

“It's only eleven…oh wait…fuck that's right. Time zones,” Dan said slurring his words just slightly.

Danielle narrowed her eyes. “Are you drunk?”

There was a small pause on the other end. “Maybe…” Dan finally answered.

Danielle let out a heavy sigh and let her head flop back down onto her pillow. “Why can't you drunk call your friends or something?” she said, her voice being slightly muffled by the pillow.

“I think Karen would probably kill me if I did that,” he mumbled. Danielle frowned, not knowing who this ‘Karen’ was. Did he have a girlfriend that she didn't know about? Then again did she really care? The answer was probably no, especially at this time of the morning.

“Look, this is important,” Dan stated. “I didn't want to tell you this over the phone, anyway, so I have to be drunk to tell you this. But I need to tell you now because otherwise I probably won't get a chance. I'm in LA ‘cause Dad decided to drag me to one of his stupid business meetings and I won't be back until fucking Saturday and then I'll have to go back to school, and there's really no way to talk to you in person. Also, I thought about it some more and realized that driving eight hours to your hick town really isn't worth it anyway, and—damn it…now I'm rambling like an idiot.”

“Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah, you were,” Danielle muttered. “Also, you're going to be staying in a hotel for a week and you've already gotten into the minibar? You have absolutely no self restraint.”

“Don't be ridiculous. We're not staying in a hotel. We own a villa right outside the city.”

An emotion filled Danielle. She couldn't quite define it, but she knew it wasn't a good one. “How many fucking houses do you have?”

“Well, let's see we have a chalet in Colorado, then—” Dan started.

“It was a rhetorical question,” she interrupted. “I don't need nor do I want to know about your excessive amount of wealth.”

There was another small pause on the other end then, “Why are you so pissy? Why do you have to be like that, Danielle?”

Danielle thought about replying with ‘Because you're drunk calling me at two in the morning,’ but instead she simply turned her head into her pillow and groaned. Turning back to the conversation with her inebriated brother, she said, “I think we're getting a little off track. What do you dread telling me so much that you needed to get wasted? Also if you needed to get drunk to tell me does that mean I need to get drunk to hear it?”

“No, Ellie! Do you know what alcohol could do to a developing brain like yours?” he said actually managing not to slur any of his words.

“Says the guy that's drinking underage,” she muttered.

“Hey, listen, in most countries the legal minimum drinking age is eighteen, which I am!”

“Yeah, well that still belies the fact that you've been sneaking stuff out of your dad's bar for a while now!” Danielle grumbled. “I still have all your insane drunk texts on my computer.”

There was chuckle on the other end of the line. “‘Belies’? Are you seriously using that word of the day calendar Jazz got you?”

Danielle glanced at the calendar Jazz had gotten her for Christmas sitting on her desk. Belie was the first word. “No…. Anyway, you're burning moonlight. Just hurry up and tell me what you called for.”

“Right, right, well do you remember that crazy thing that happened last week?”

“No, what crazy thing?” Danielle deadpanned.

“You know…with the portal…” Dan whispered through the phone conspiratorially.

Danielle rolled her eyes. She had forgotten how dumb Dan acted when he was drunk. “Yes, I knew what you were talking about. I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh, right, well have you or the twerp had anything strange happen to you? I mean besides what was already happening with the…invisibility and all that shit,” he said sounding like he was leading up to something.

Danielle stiffened. “Um, interesting you should bring that up. There was something else weird that happened today—err, well, yesterday now.”

“…Weird how?”

Danielle bit her lip and twisted the hem of her sheets. “Um, well, Danny…went ghost.” When she received nothing but silence on the other end she quickly continued. “You see, we were down in the lab with Dad and then he left us alone to go look for something. While he was out of the lab, we kinda had a little accident and the portal doors opened and let out—and I kid you not—an octopus ghost, which by the way we're calling an ectopus. Anyway, Danny transformed and—you know how Sam and Tucker described you guys when you first came out of the portal? He looked like that! And it just…” she ran a hand down her face with a sigh, “it was really fucking crazy.”

“Hey, can you hold on a second? I need to get something,” Dan said as soon as she was finished.

Danielle frowned slightly. “Um, okay.”

A few minutes later Dan returned. “Alright, I'm back.”

“What did you need to get?”

“Jack Daniels,” he answered shortly. “Anyway, the same thing happened to me day before yesterday, sans the freaky octopus ghost, but you could probably infer that.”

“Dan, this is really serious,” Danielle said.

“I know, Ellie,” he said soberly. “I think we need to talk more about this in person.”

“Well, that sounds great, but when? You said you weren't going to be back until school starts again and you live eight hours away. I mean unless you want to highjack your dad’s private jet and fly over for the weekend or something.”

He made a noise that was between a scoff and a chuckle. “I don't know how I would explain that if I did. You think it could wait until spring break?”

“I guess…” Danielle muttered.

The conversation died and silence reined over the line until Dan said, “Anyway, I guess I should let you get back to sleep. Good night.”

“Alright. Don't drink too much, and I love you,” she said. There was a pause on the other end and she could practically see him pinching the bridge of his nose like he always did when he was embarrassed. “What? Are you not gonna tell me you love me too?”

“Danielle…” he muttered in a warning tone.

“Are you too macho to even tell your little sister you love her? What kind of big brother are you?” she said, hamming it up.

There was a sigh over the line and he finally said, “Alright, I love you, too. Now, goodnight.”

“Good night, Dan,” Danielle said with a smirk and hung up.

With a sigh, she place her phone back on the nightstand and laid back down. She tried to get back to sleep, but unfortunately, her stomach had other plans. She curled in on herself as her stomach felt like it was doing a whole floor routine.

Danielle got up on shaky legs and stumbled to the bathroom. Lucky for her it was right next door, otherwise she might have spewed all over the hallway.

In the back of her mind between heaves she hoped that she wasn't waking up the whole house. Finally, after she thought she would spew her guts into infinity, her sickness subsided into dry heaves, then eventually she was able to stop retching altogether. That was when she got the chance to really look at what she had hacked up.

Her vomit was an atomic green like in cartoons. However, this wasn't a cartoon and vomit had no earthly business ever being that color. As her mind cleared from the shock, she realized what she was seeing: it was ectoplasm.

Danielle was pulled away from staring at her unearthly vomit when she heard a tentative knock on the bathroom door. “Hey, Ellie is that you?” a groggy sounding Danny said through the door.

After a pause, which seemed to stretch on for far too long, she answered quietly, “Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she lied.

There was a small pause from Danny on the other side of the door then without preamble he opened the door and came in. “You're lying again,” he said closing the door behind him.

“And you're barging into inappropriate places again! What if I was actually using the toilet or something?” Danielle hissed angrily.

“It was a risk I was willing to take. Plus you didn't have the door locked so ultimately it would have been your fault.”

“Whatever. Since you barged in anyway, do you wanna see something really disturbing?” she deadpanned.

Danny gave her a look that was somewhere between scared, amused, and curious. “I don't know. Do I want to?”

“I highly doubt it, but come over here and look at it anyway,” she said pointing to the toilet.

Danny frowned. “You mean your barf? Why would you want me to—oh….” he said as he leaned over the toilet and looked at its contents. “Is…that what I think it is?”

She closed the lid of the toilet and flushed it. No sense in letting it sit there potentially staining the inside of the toilet now that Danny had seen it. “Yeah, and I'm sure it can't mean anything good at all,” Danielle said as she pulled herself to her feet using the edge of the sink.

Danny gave his sister a wide eyed look. “Oh yeah, ya think?!” he hissed.

He put a hand to her forehead but quickly snatched it back. “Shit Danielle you're burning up!”

“Wait, I am? First I was basically hypothermic, and now I'm feverish? What the hell?” She leaned heavily on the edge of the sink. “How does that make any sense?”

“I don't know,” Danny said as he began to dig through the cabinets, probably for the thermometer. “Does anything really make any sense anymore?”

Danielle gave a humorless chuckle. “That is the question, isn't it?”

Danny finally found what he was looking for which indeed was a thermometer. He gave it to her and she subsequently put it under her tongue. After a minute of uneasy silence and nervously tapping fingers, the thermometer beeped. Danny took out the small device before his twin could. His features twisted in confusion as soon as he read the small display.

“What? What is it?” Danielle said, snatching the thermometer from her brother. The display simply read FEVER.

“Th-that can't be right. You need to do it again,” Danny stuttered.

Danielle got a sinking feeling that taking another reading wouldn't change anything, but stuck it under her tongue again anyway. A minute later the thermometer beeped again and again the display said the same thing.

Danielle gently laid down the thermometer on the edge of the sink and the twins sat there in silence for a good minute.

“A, um, medical thermometer goes up to about one hundred-eight degrees before it does that,” Danielle muttered quietly, breaking the hush. “Y-you probably already know that…hundred-six is the highest someone's temperature can go before they die.” She was probably stating the obvious, but she felt like something had to be said.

They lapsed back into silence until Danny said, “Its probably an error, right? The thing’s probably broken, right?”

Danielle shrugged. “If we lived normal lives, then yeah. The problem is, we don't.”

“Do we have another thermometer? Like an old mercury one?” Danny asked.

“I don't think so, but what would it matter?”

“Don't you at least want to know how far outside of normal you are? Aren't you curious? You must be breaking some kind of record,” Danny said, his tips twitching into a smile, and his eyes taking on a maniac light. His eyes only got that way when he was either really worried or really excited. It always made Danielle a little anxious when his eyes took on that kind of look.

“I guess…” she said slowly.

“You know, there's probably a thermometer in the lab we could use,” he suggested. “Do you feel up to going down there, or do you think you're still too sick?”

Danielle did feel better as she usually did when she threw up. She didn’t know if that was normal for other people or if it was just another thing that made her an outlier, but she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. However, she didn't particularly feel like going into the lab, not because she was sick, but because she had begun to hate it down there.

“Um, I'm okay, I guess,” she said uncertainty.

They left the bathroom and went down the stairs in silence, but as soon as Danielle saw the door to the basement, she said, “Um, actually, meet me in the kitchen. I'm feeling a little queasy again, and I'm gonna get some saltines and Sprite.”

Danny's eyebrows creased with concern. “You know what, maybe you should just go back to bed. We can check this out in the morning.”

“No, no, I'm okay, really,” she said waiving a hand. “Besides, I don't think I could get back to sleep.”

“Alright,” Danny said reluctantly, and turned to go down into the basement.

As the basement door swung close behind her twin, Danielle walked into the kitchen and looked through the cabinets as quietly as she could. She pulled out a sleeve of crackers and poured herself a glass of Sprite. By the time she had a fourth of the sleeve eaten, Danny returned.

“Hey, I found this! Isn't it cool?! it's like a laser gun!” Danny said in a stage whisper as he came into the kitchen waving a vaguely gun shaped object.

“Dude, our parents have actual laser guns,” Danielle said dryly. “You're way too excited about thi—” Suddenly a bright red dot appeared on the table in front of her.

“It's an infrared thermometer, and currently, the table surface is seventy-five degrees,” Danny said looking smug. “Pretty cool, eh?”

It was then that Danny's hand decided to disappear again, and the thermometer slipped right through the air where his hand should have been. Danny tried to compensate for this by catching it with his other hand, but he just ended up fumbling it and looking like a dork when it hit the ground with a loud clatter.

Danielle slapped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to smother her laughter.

Danny looked at her with a scowl, his cheeks turning bright red. “It's not funny! Disappearing body parts are no laughing matter, Danielle!” Danny hissed.

“Nope, you’re right, you're totally right. It's not funny at all,” Danielle said, clearly still laughing at her brother's misfortune.

“Alright, let me just take your temperature already,” Danny grumbled as he moved closer to his twin sister.

The little red dot appeared in the center of her abdomen. She was about to make some kind of lame joke about being sniped when she saw the incredulous look on Danny's face.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“One hundred twenty-two degrees,” he said, looking up from the display with a horrified expression.

“You're shitting me,” Danielle said, as she stood. He turned the thermometer so she could see what it said. “You're not shitting me.” Impossibly, the thermometer actually read one hundred twenty-two point five degrees. “I honestly don't know why I'm surprised at this point.”

“No kidding,” Danny breathed as he pulled up a chair beside her.

“What do you think this means? I should be dead. At the very least I should be fucking cooking alive, but I'm not. I feel fine for the most part,” Danielle said as she ate another cracker.

“I have no freaking clue,” he said with a sigh. He took a cracker from the sleeve, probably just needing something to do rather than actually wanting the cracker. “Pretty much for the last few days, no one has had any idea what was going on. Why should that be any different now?”

Danielle hummed noncommittally and reached for her Sprite. Just as she was about to lift the plastic cup to her lips it suddenly fell out of her hand, splashing soda all down her chest, stomach and lap, and even managed to get on the table as well. A stream of curses flowed out of her mouth and she was about to reach for the paper towels when she noticed that the hand she was reaching with didn't exist anymore.

“Uh… D-Danny?” she whimpered.

“It's okay. Jus-just stay cool,” he said, probably trying to calm himself as well. “You just need to pretend that it's there again and it'll reappear, I promise.”

It took longer than Danielle thought it would, but finally, her had reappeared with the tingling of pins and needles.

Danny let out a sigh and now that the crisis was averted they set to cleaning up the mess, trying not to think too hard about what just happened.


	8. Mystery Meat

New Years came and went uneventfully—except for a few more sightings of strange lights in the sky. What had started out as something that people had just shrugged off and discounted, was starting to make people uneasy. Danny worried that it would become a serious problem, but as school loomed ahead of him and Danielle their worry focused towards it. The thought of going to school in their current…conditions almost made Danny want to pull his hair out. Danielle was riddled with worry as well apparently, acting uncharacteristically subdued and jumpy all day the Sunday before they had to go to school. Suffice it to say that neither of them got much sleep that Sunday night.

Danny came down the stairs, shuffling like a zombie, to the kitchen to meet a nearly equally tired looking Danielle sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee that was probably made ten times stronger than was intended by the coffee company and God himself.

Danny, on autopilot, went to the cabinet and got down a bowl for himself. Danielle mumbled something almost incoherently about getting one down for her too, and he complied robotically. Next it was the cereal, and then the milk. Finally, Danny sat down by his sister and started to enjoy his bowl of Froot Loops as much as he could in his still zombified state.

Jazz walked in looking as perky as ever, her hair still slightly damp from a shower. “Good morning everyone!” she said in a teeth grindingly chipper voice.

“Are we sure Jazz isn't adopted?” Danielle muttered to Danny as Jazz turned her back to them to look in the fridge.

“She's not adopted, she just got the good genes,” Danny scoffed.

“I heard that,” Jazz said, looking over her shoulder at them with a glare. She came out of the fridge with the carton of orange juice and poured herself a glass. “You know there's no need to be so crotchety in the mornings. This has been an everyday thing going on eleven years. I'd think you'd be used to it by now.”

“And I'd think you'd have gotten used to us not being used to it by now, but here we are,” Danny said in a monotone, while Danielle tried to restrain herself from giggling at the word “crotchety”.

Jazz rolled her eyes and turned to pull a granola bar out of the cabinet. “Then at least look at it this way, Mom and Dad aren't up yet, or if they are they're messing around in the basement with their hazardous materials where they should be. At least it's not one of those mornings where they bring their work to the breakfast table,” Jazz said as she sat down across from the twins.

Only a few seconds after she spoke, the sound of the basement door swinging open made its way into the kitchen.

“You fucking jinxed it Jazz. Way to go,” Danielle said as she sipped her coffee.

Jazz gave her an exasperated look. “Don't curse.”

Their mother—who was fully engrossed in a new piece of tech she and their father were working on—came into the kitchen and sat at the table, Jack trailing behind. He filled a cup of coffee for her which she gratefully accepted. Not looking up from the device she was tweaking, she said to Jazz, “I remember you saying something about needing to go in early today, so don't worry about taking the twins to school.”

“Thanks, Mom, but I can take them. You can go back down into the lab if you want,” Jazz said pointedly.

“No, it's fine,” Maddie said waving her off.

Their dad started making toast while Jazz sulked and Danny went back to eating his cereal. He wasn't paying attention and the spoon slipped out of his hand—or rather through his hand. The spoon clanged loudly against the ceramic bowl, and a few droplets of milk splashed onto the table. There was a small panicked pause as Danny simply stared at where his hand should be, then quickly hid his stump under the table before either his parents or Jazz could see it.

Jazz, having heard the loud clang, eyed him suspiciously, probably thinking he was developing a tic. He gave her a very “nothing to see here” kind of smile, to which she rolled her eyes and directed her attention elsewhere. He glanced at Danielle who had seen the disappearing act his hand had once again pulled.

Danny looked under the table. Upon seeing that his hand was still missing, he cursed quietly under his breath.

Danny was momentarily distracted by his vanishing limb when their mom said a little too loudly, “And it's just about done! Only a few more—”

She didn't get to finish her sentence before Jack asked excitedly, "It's done?!" With out waiting for her response, he grabbed the device out of her hands and held it up shouting, “It’s done! The Fenton Finder is DONE!" He patted the device in his hands admirably and went on to explain. “This baby uses satellites to track a ghost’s exact location!”

“It uses what to track what?!” Danny said in a horrified whisper. He and Danielle shared a terrified look.

However, no one else noticed their apparent discomfort because the device chose then to speak. “Welcome to the Fenton Finder. A ghost is near. Walk forward,” it said in a metallic female voice.

The twins looked at the thing in fear while Jazz kept an unimpressed expression firmly in place. Maddie got out of her seat and took a step forward with her husband.

Danny tried to get out of his seat to put as much distance as he could between him and the device, but he found that Danielle had clamped a hand around his arm and was apparently frozen in fear to her spot.

The Fenton parents only took one more step towards their kids before the device beeped and said, “Ghost located. Thank you for using the Fenton Finder!”

Jack and Maddie looked between their invention and the twins with equally confused expressions. While Danielle was frozen with an almost comical look of horror on her face, Danny gave his parents a twitchy, nervous smile.

Jack boomed, “What? That can't be right!” He looked to Maddie for an explanation, but she simply shrugged her shoulders.

“Actually, we kind of have something we need to tell you,” Danny blurted before even really realizing what he was saying.

Danielle slowly turned to him still with a horrified look. Danny winced when the grip on his arm tightened. He looked nervously between his twin and his parents who were now curiously looking at him. He seriously considered just making something up, but his mind was blank of anything but the truth. He started to open his mouth and just let the truth out, but by some stroke of luck (or not depending on how you look at it) Jazz interrupted him.

“That's not the only thing you need,” she said, sending a venomous glare at their parents. “You need guidance, and parents who can provide it.”

Maddie sent her eldest daughter a sympathetic—and a little exasperated—look. “Jazz, I know what we do sometimes doesn't make sense, but you're only—”

“Sixteen, I know! But my biological age has nothing to do with this!” she said nearly shouting. “And I won't allow your insane obsession pollute the minds of impressionable children anymore!”

Danielle leaned in slightly and whispered to Danny, “Did she really just call us ‘impressionable children’?”

Before Danny could give any kind of response, Jazz came up behind them and practically pulled them out of their seats. “Come on, I'll drive you to school.”

* * *

 

Danielle caught her brother's eye in the rearview mirror as he got in shotgun of Jazz's immaculate 2010 Prius. She sent him a murderous glare. He was going to get an earful when they got to school, and by his stricken expression, she'd say he knew it.

The ride to school was deathly quite, the tension so thick in the car you could cut it with a knife.

As soon as the twins got out of the Prius and Jazz had driven off to find a parking space, Danielle turned to her twin. “What the fuck, dude?!” she said throwing up her arms dramatically. “You were just gonna blurt out our secret over breakfast of all times?!”

Danny sighed. “Okay, bad timing, I get it, but they were right there with their new invention all in our faces. I wasn't thinking. But—” Danny took a step closer to her and lowered his voice when another student walked by them, “—would it really be so bad if we told them, anyway? I mean with all the tech they have they're bound to figure it out eventually when we keep popping up on their radars and stuff. Wouldn't it be better if we told them rather than them jumping to conclusions and thinking we're possessed or something?”

Danielle hated to admit it, but what he was saying made a lot of sense. She heaved a resigned sigh and started to walk for the school doors, Danny following. “I guess, but… it still doesn't feel real yet—like this is just a bad dream that we can't wake up from—and if we tell them…it'll make it real…” she said, her voice taking on a brooding tone, effectively ending the conversation.

That honestly wasn't even her biggest worry. Their parents were ghost hunters and scientists, but unlike most scientists they were not subjective to the things they studied. Their parents had always talked about ghost's like they were monsters to be destroyed—like they only studied them to find their weaknesses and destroy them. Maybe they didn’t mean to sound as biased as they did, but that's always how they came off.

Danielle knew their parents loved them and would do anything for them, but that meant they might try drastic measures to ‘cure’ them of a condition they felt was harming their children. Dan’s statement about the portal changing them on a molecular level, made her wonder if it was even possible for them to go back to the way they were, but she knew her parents would try their hardest to get the ghost side out of Danny—even if there was a possibility it might kill him.

They entered the school, and Danielle let out a small sigh she hoped Danny didn't hear. That was exactly the topic that had been keeping her up the last few nights. Well, that and how they might get carted away to some secret government lab if they were accidentally exposed to the public.

They made it to their lockers that were situated right next to each other. At the beginning of the school year, they had begged and pleaded to have lockers next to each other, and when the secretary was just about at her wits end with all the requests she was getting from the twins (mostly from Danielle), they were finally moved beside each other. In a stroke of luck, Sam and Tucker were also only a few lockers away.

As the twins got out their textbooks almost in sync, Danielle saw out of the corner of her eye a white blur shoot toward Danny and heard a subsequent small splat. With a groan of disgust he quickly brushed off the spitball.

Danielle spun around to face the group of troglodytes in letterman jackets, laughing at her brother's expense. There was honestly nothing that made her angrier than when someone messed with her twin, and she knew Danny felt the same way about her. If it weren't so early in the morning, and she wasn't just running on coffee, she might have taken the meatheads on. She was practically legend for jumping on the back of a kid twice her size and beating the hell out of him in fifth grade. Danielle was small, but she was full of fury.

The jocks walked away laughing, like blowing spitballs was the funniest thing ever. “Fucking sociopaths,” Danielle muttered under her breath.

The twins thankfully didn't have much time to brood about the embodiment of the decay of modern society walking down the hall, seeing as Tucker and Sam found them only a few minutes later.

“So what's up?” Tucker said as he twisted the dial of his combination lock.

“Danny almost exposed us this morning,” Danielle answered, slamming the locker door shut. She shot a halfhearted glare at her brother.

“I told you I wasn't thinking! It just came out!” Danny said defensively. “Anyway, I think we should tell them, eventually.”

“It's only been a week and a half,” she groaned. “Eventually sounds so far off, so why are we even talking about this now?”

“Eventually might be sooner than you think,” Danny said with a raised eyebrow. Danielle's only response was another halfhearted glare sent his way.

“I don't think you should tell them, at all,” Sam said. “Parents don't listen, and worse they don't understand! WHY CAN’T THEY ACCEPT ME FOR WHO I AM!” She slammed her fist frustratedly into the locker door beside hers. If Danielle didn't know better, she'd say there was a small indentation left where Sam had punched the locker.

Sam’s parents must have done something to majorly piss her off. Danielle made a note of asking her about it later.

“Um, Sam, we're talking about our powers, our problems,” Danny said gesturing between himself and Danielle.

“Oh, right me too,” she said sheepishly.

“Okay, wait a second, so what exactly happened this morning?” Tucker asked, redirecting everyone’s attention.

Danny let out a frustrated huff. “Well, my parents made a new invention that can detect ghosts, and that's kinda when I blurted about needing to tell them something. But even before that everyone at the breakfast table almost saw my hand disappear. What if something like that happens in class? Danielle’s starting to experience phantom limb syndrome, too. People could catch either one of us when it happens! What then?!”

“We’d go from geek to freak, that's what would happen,” Danielle muttered sourly. She let out a frustrated sigh and leaned a shoulder against the lockers.

“Kind of like what you're doing now?” Tucker said as Danielle's shoulder started to sink into a locker door. She quickly straightened. Damn, she didn't notice before Tucker said anything. She blamed her lack of attention on only getting three hours of sleep last night.

Just then the bell rang, signaling for them to go to class. “See you at lunch,” Danny said before they all parted ways.

* * *

 

Maddie looked over the schematics of the supposedly failed Fenton Finder without really seeing anything.

Jazz’s outburst that morning still weighed heavily on Maddie’s mind, but she had to push it away in favor of doing her work. Jazz didn't understand—of course she didn't, she was still so young, and yet she was right. Maddie had to sacrifice being a better mother in favor of being a good scientist and ghost hunter. It was for the greater good, but every resentful look Jazz sent her made her feel hot shame.

However, it was better than the alternative, which was Jazz knowing everything and fearing every shadow she saw out of the corner of her eye. Maddie almost hoped her daughter—all of her children—would stay oblivious to the real things that went bump in the night, but if she didn't find away to stop the barrier from weakening, Jazz might come face to face with one of those monsters all too soon.

There was still no progress on that front, but Maddie had taken to her husband’s advice. She threw herself into designing inventions to at least protect against the ghosts to distract herself from possible impending doom.

Maddie took in a deep breath and let those thoughts slip away, refocusing herself on the device in front of her.

“I just don't understand what's wrong,” she muttered looking over the schematics and then at the Fenton Finder that had its innards exposed for her to see.

Twisting her lips thoughtfully she closed the back of it and tried checking it again, this time doing a general sweep of a ten mile radius, covering all of Amity Park and catching a bit of the neighboring city of Elmerton. This time coordinates popped up on the display. “Three ghosts are at this location,” said the electronic female voice.

Maddie’s heart nearly leapt into her throat. Three ghosts all in one location? What on earth could they be up to. She looked over to Jack, who had abruptly stopped what he had been doing at the mention of not one but three ghosts.

Without a word, Maddie went over to one of the lab computers and tipped in the coordinates into the search bar. Her brow creased in a deep frown when she saw where exactly the coordinates led: Casper High School. “What? Why there?”

She turned to Jack, who simply shrugged. “Beats me,” he said. “But let's go get that ghost scum anyway!”

“Wait,” Maddie called out. “After what happened this morning, I'm not so willing to trust what that thing says.” She thought back to the twin's anxious faces and Jazz’s anger.

“But they could be in trouble!” Jack argued. “Ghosts could be attacking the school!”

Maddie pursed her lips. “Alright we’ll do a drive by, but if everything looks fine we’re leaving.”

Jack’s face lit up again. He grabbed a few prototypes off the table and rushed out the door. Maddie smiled and shook her head at his antics. She was just about to leave the lab as well when she passed the FEAR. After a second of deliberation she grabbed the device off the table and walked out. It wouldn't hurt to take some more atmospheric readings while they were out.

She caught up to her husband as he was going out the front door. “I just hope that ghost scum hasn't possessed our kids,” he said somewhat offhandedly.

Maddie started and turned to him. “What makes you say that, Jack?” she said.

“Well, you know what happened this morning…” he said opening the door to the GAV (Ghost Assault Vehicle), which was basically just a souped up RV.

“Yes, but it didn't react to Jazz, and the Fenton Finder said that there were three ghosts at the school,” Maddie pointed out as she got in beside him.

Still, the thought of her children being violated by those monsters like that made her stomach churn. Yet another thing she'd have to add to her ever growing list of worries.

* * *

 

Tucker and Sam caught up with the twins in the hall as they all headed to lunch.   
  
“Hey, man, how you holding up?” Tucker asked Danny as he came up beside his glum looking friend and put an arm around his shoulders.  
  
“Terribly,” Danny answered.  
  
“Danny’s hand did the thing again in our chemistry class,” Danielle explained. “He dropped a beaker and it kinda shattered all over the place. On the upside nobody saw, but Mr. Peabody’s probably not going to let him near glass wear anytime soon.”  
  
“Don’t worry, Danny. The day’s almost half over. Only five more hours,” Sam stated.  
  
The twins groaned simultaneously. “Just kill me now,” Danny said.  
  
“Cheer up, pall; it’s Meatloaf Monday! We got that to look forward to!” Tucker said excitedly. He, for some strange reason, loved cafeteria meatloaf. In fact he loved any kind of meat and hardly ate anything but.  
  
“Mmm, maybe not,” Sam said with a sly smile.  
  
“What do you mean?” Tucker asked, already a bit worried.  
  
The four teens came up to the cafeteria doors, and Sam pointed to a flyer saying: Vegan Week! Tucker’s jaw dropped open in abject horror.  
  
“You like it?” Sam asked wearing a mischievous smile. “The school board decided to try out a healthier menu. I finally wore them down. Who knew sending a letter in nearly every week last semester would do the trick?”   
  
Tucker turned to her slowly with the most vile glare he could muster. “What have you done?” he asked in a horrified whisper.  
  
Danny and Danielle cringed, knowing that a storm was brewing.  
  
“Oh come on Tucker you can go at least one week without meat.”

“How do you know? You don’t know my metabolic needs!”  
  
“Humans don’t need meat. That’s a fact!”  
  
“Could you guys defend your food beliefs later?” Danny said cutting in. “Lets just go get in line.”   
  
They went in and waited in line where three items were being served: veggie burger, veggie dog, or a garden salad. Danny and Tucker both chose a veggie dog, while Danielle chose a veggie burger and Sam chose a salad. They sat in their usual place to enjoy their not so usual lunch.  
  
“I’m not eating,” Tucker said and pushed his food away to lay his head on the table like a pouty child.  
  
“Oh, come on, Tuck. I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Danny said, once again being the mediator. To show Tucker that the food was indeed edible, he took a bite of his hot dog. After completely chewing and then swallowing, he said flatly with a deadpan expression, “Yeah, this is actually really awful.”  
  
“Could just be the brand they got,” Danielle suggested as she took a bite of her lunch. She made a face, but tried to hide it and continued to eat.  
  
Sam simply rolled her eyes and began to go back to her salad when a hand rested on her shoulder. “Ah, Ms. Manson,” said Mr. Lancer, an overweight and balding English teacher that doubled as the school’s vice principal. “The school board wanted me to personally thank you for ushering this welcome experiment into this cafeteria.” His words were subtly laced with sarcasm, which everyone seemed to pick up on except for Sam, who sat up straighter under the false praise.  
  
Tucker sat up suddenly and sniffed the air. “Is that…actual meat I smell?” he said gaining a rabid gleam in his eye. He sniffed closer to Mr. Lancer who instantly took a few steps back.

“No, no, I’m sure it’s your imagination. The rumors about the new all steak buffet in the teacher’s lounge are, after all, completely untrue.” Mr. Lancer grinned as he pulled out a tooth pick from his shirt pocket and absently cleaned his teeth. “Thanks again,” he said to Sam before walking away.  
  
“Yeah, thanks again for making us eat garbage, Sam!” Tucker scoffed. He immediately let his head fall back onto the table, muttering angrily into the formica.  
  
“It’s not garbage! It’s perfectly edible food!” she defended.  
  
“It’s garbage!” Tucker grumbled into the table top.  
  
Sam shot him a glare before going back to her lunch.   
  
Danny was just about to take another bite of his nearly inedible hot dog when a shiver ran up his spine and cold breath forced its way up his throat. Sam and Tucker were oblivious, but Danielle noticed.   
  
“Wasn’t that what happened before the ectopus attacked us in the basement?” she asked.  
  
Sam looked up from her salad, having heard what Danielle said. “Wait, what happen?” she asked with a frown.  
  
“Danny’s breath, it kinda—you know how your breath fogs when its cold outside? His breath did that just now,” Danielle explained.  
  
This was when Tucker finally clued in and lifted his head off the table and said, “What’s up with Danny’s breath?”  
  
“What do you think it means?” Danny asked his sister as he looked nervously around the cafeteria. He hoped no one else saw it, especially not a teacher. They might jump to conclusions and think he was smoking in school.

He stopped when he caught a glimpse of something in the serving window. A lady, to be exact, a lunch lady, judging by her display of a hairnet and an apron, glided—not walked, glided—past one of the serving windows. It could have just been really smooth walking old lunch lady, if it weren't for her being slightly transparent and green.  
  
“Uh, guys I’ve got a problem,” Danny said.  
  
“You’re damn right you got a problem, Fenturd,” said a strangely high pitched voice.  
  
Danny reluctantly turned around to face a dismayingly large, beefy blond gorilla, that happened to go by the name Dash Baxter. He also claimed the title of the school’s worst bully, and unsurprisingly was a football player. Unfortunately for Danny, he seemed to be the blond gorilla’s favorite punching bag ever since kindergarten.  
  
“I’m on a high protein diet. I have to be to keep fit enough to be the star quarterback. Do you think I can be the star quarterback with this stuff being served because of your girlfriend?” Dash asked, or rather demanded.

The only thing that particularly stuck with Danny out of that tirade was the fact that Dash had dared to say Sam was Danny’s girlfriend. “She’s not my girlfriend!” Danny objected.

Apparently Sam was of a like mind seeing as she had also responded with “I’m not his girlfriend!”  
  
Ignoring their outbursts, Dash continued on with his rant. “These are my glory days. It’s all down hill from here. How am I supposed to enjoy my glory days eating this garbage?!” Dash said, to which Sam gave him a venomous glare. If looks could kill Dash would be a smoldering spot on the ground.  
  
“Well, at least you’re honest with yourself,” Danny quipped, which might not have been the smartest thing to do at that moment.  
  
“What was that?” Dash asked hauling Danny up out of his seat by the collar of his shirt.  
  
“Uh, nothing Dash,” Danny stammered.  
  
Dash threw Danny back into his seat. “You’re gonna pay, Fenton.”  
  
Danny glanced back at the kitchen window and saw the ghostly lunch lady once again. He wasn’t quite sure what to do about her, but he figured it was up to him to do something seeing as he was the one with ghost powers.

Thinking quickly while Dash was still spouting insults and threats and Tucker was desperately trying to restrain Sam and Danielle from teaming up and murdering the jock, Danny grabbed the half eaten hot dog off his tray and threw it right into Dash’s face.  
  
“Garbage fight!” Danny yelled loud enough for the entire cafeteria hear.  
  
“It’s not garbage!” Sam yelled, no longer able to contain her indignation.  
  
Danny pulled her along with Tucker and Danielle under the table as the cafeteria erupted into chaos.  
  
“Did you really just do what I think you did?!” Tucker asked in awe.  
  
“Yeah, and I’m totally going to regret it later, but there’s something in the kitchen that really needs to be checked out. Something of the paranormal variety,” Danny said.  
  
“You mean like a ghost?” Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
“Um, yeah.”  
  
Without another word, he crawled out from under the table and started toward the kitchen door. Danny carefully negotiated the crown, dodging certain food items thrown at him, and made it to the kitchen with only a slight spattering of mashed potatoes on his shirt. He glanced back at Tucker, Sam, and Danielle when they had all made it into the kitchen. None of them were quite as lucky as Danny was at dodging various foodstuffs.  
  
Danny turned back around to see the ghost had reappeared across the kitchen. She was turned, seemingly looking for something. She didn’t seem to have even noticed the four teenagers—or maybe she simply ignored them for the moment.  
  
“She doesn't seem so dangerous. She looks a little like my grandmother,” Tucker said, tacking a small nervous laugh at the end.  
  
“Shouldn’t she be haunting a bingo hall or something?” Danielle commented, with a raised eyebrow.  
  
The four teens froze when the ghost turned and looked right at them. “Excuse me, children, can you help me? Today’s lunch is meatloaf, but I don’t see the meatloaf. Did somebody change the menu?” she said in a sweet grandmotherly voice, only with a slight bit of reverb to remind you that she was a ghost.  
  
“Yeah, she did,” Tucker, not thinking twice, and obviously still irritated, said, jabbing a thumb in Sam’s direction.  
  
In an instant the sweet grandmotherly facade was dropped and the ghost’s appearance drastically changed. Half of her face seemed to be melted or burned off and there were scorch marks and holes in her clothes. “YOU CHANGED THE MENU?!” she screamed with an unnatural echo entering her voice. “THE MENU HAS BEEN THE SAME FOR OVER FIFTY YEARS!” She then quite literally roared.  
  
“Get behind me!” Danny said trying to sound a lot less afraid than he was. Before his friends even moved he shoved them behind him.  
  
“Wow, I feel safe,” Sam, the ever dark and sarcastic goth, said.  
  
The serving windows slammed shut and the lights dimmed, both very good signs that some serious supernatural stuff was about to go down.  
  
The ghostly lunch lady raised her arms and the plates and platters in the cabinets and on the counters suddenly began to levitate.   
  
Danny stuttered uncertainly, “I-I’m going ghost, I guess,” adding the last part under his breath.  
  
He wasn't sure how this worked but he hoped to hell that it would just sort of happen like it did last time. He was immensely relieved when the pale blue ring of light formed around his waist, seemingly on instinct.  
  
The lunch lady paused, apparently surprised by Danny’s trick but recovered quickly and hurled all the levitating plates and trays at the teens.   
  
“Hold on to me!” Danny shouted and concentrated on feeling the cold sensation he got when part of him went intangible.   
  
Everything flew through them and crashed into the wall behind them, causing an enormous clatter but breaking only a few trays since most of the dishes were plastic and drop proof in the first place.  
  
“Hey, that actually worked, cool!” Danny said with a chuckle.  
  
“I AM THE RULER OF LUNCH!” the lunch lady ghost yelled drawing the four teens attention back to her. “LUNCH IS SACRED! LUNCH HAS RULES!”  
  
“I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you think it is, lady,” Danny said.  
  
She seemed to really not like that, because she roared again and the burners on the stoves behind her blazed to life, shooting flames at least six feet into the air. The stoves began to shake violently then completely dislodged from their place and shot forward toward the terrified teens. Danny roughly grabbed his friends and sister, and pulled them out of the kitchen, phasing through the far wall.  
  
“Woo! I am on fire to day!” Danny said, even though he was already starting to feel drained.

“This is the thanks I get for trying to make everyone a little healthier?!” Sam shrieked, pulling herself off the floor.  
  
Suddenly the ground began to tremble and the lockers flew open. Their contents flew out towards the lunch lady ghost, making Danny feel really sorry for the poor kids that would have to explain why all their homework and textbooks were suddenly missing.  
  
Papers and books weren't the only thing flying towards the ghost. Meat, coming from an unknown source flew towards her as well, covering her and making a disgusting amalgam of meat and school supplies.  
  
“That’s a whole porterhouse!” Tucker yelled as a piece of meat flew right by his face. “Where is all this meat coming from?”   
  
Danny sent him a look. Of course with everything going on, Tucker would be worried only about meat.  
  
“Meat is the most powerful of the five food groups!” the lunch lady ghost ranted. “You did no one a favor by changing the menu, child! AND THAT IS WHY YOU MUST PARISH!”  
  
“The only thing that has an expiration date is you, lady!” Danny said, raising a fist at the ghost.  
  
Danny suddenly felt something change inside him. The cold receded back to a spot in his chest and with it his ghostly appearance faded. “Oops…. I, uh…didn’t mean to do that.”  
  
The lunch lady in her meat and school supply suit, roared and grabbed Danny, throwing him into Danielle and Tucker who were standing close enough together to play a game of human bowling. The three teens all landed solidly on the hard linoleum, Danielle and Tucker unfortunately taking the brunt of the impact. This of course gave the lunch lady ghost ample time to kidnap a kicking and screaming Sam.  
  
“Get off!” Danielle wheezed as she pushed on her brother. Danny complied, rolling over on his hands and knees.   
  
“Change…back,” Tucker said, still wheezing from having the wind knocked out of him. “We gotta go!”

“You three aren’t going anywhere except for detention!” Mr. Lancer said, appearing virtually out of thin air.  
  
“Told you you were going to pay, Fenton!” Dash taunted with a smug expression from beside the middle aged teacher. He really shouldn’t look that smug, Danny thought, seeing as he was still covered head to toe in food.  
  
“That’s it!” Danielle said slamming her open palm onto the floor.

There was an almost imperceptible flicker of the lights.

She pushed herself off the floor and started towards Dash who was watching her with an amused expression. Danny tried to catch his sister, but Lancer beat him to it catching her by the arm before she could take a swing at the jock’s smirking face.  
  
“Shall we add physical violence to your growing list of demerits, Miss Fenton?” Mr. Lancer said raising an eyebrow.  
  
Danielle yanked her arm out of the teacher’s hold and backed up, but not letting up on her glare at Dash. Danny caught her eye and sent her a disapproving look which she just shrugged at.  
  
The teacher cleared his throat and straightened his tie. “Alright then, to my office.”

* * *

 

Maddie looked from the Fenton Finder in her hands to the school. Things seemed calm and normal. Some of the upperclassmen and teachers walked calmly from the school to their parked cars, likely going out to lunch seeing as it was noon straight up.

“I knew this thing still needed work,” Maddie muttered.

“I don't know,” Jack said, narrowing his eyes at the school, “it could just be hiding in there.”

Maddie shook her head as she watched another student go out to their car. “I don't see why it would. With the amount of ectoplasm in the atmosphere, it should be able to fully manifest easily and wreak as much havoc as it wants.”

“Who knows how a ghost’s mind works,” Jack said, still eyeing the school suspiciously.

“We can't go barging in there, anyway,” Maddie reasoned. “I'd rather not get the cops called on us, thank you.”

“We can just make something up. Like say we're taking the twins out for lunch, or something,” Jack said, getting more and more excited as he continued. “It is still lunchtime, right?”

Maddie sighed and looked towards the school again. She supposed she wouldn't really be satisfied if she didn't get at least a peak inside, as well. The chance that there were three ghosts in the school was too worrisome to ignore.

Drawing in a long breath she said, “Alright then, lets go see.”

* * *

 

Danny, Tucker, and Danielle were quickly seated facing Lancer’s desk. The middle aged teacher pulled out the file for the freshmen class and sifted through the papers.

“Daniel Fenton: Occasional tardiness, and a dropped beaker this morning, I heard,” Lancer paused to look over the edge of the file with a warning look. “But an overall clean record.”

“Danielle Fenton: Occasional tardiness, as well, a few verbal disagreements with other students, and one incident that became a little more physical,” the teacher said with another pointed glance over the edge of the paper. “Still nothing particularly serious.”

“And finally Tucker Foely: Chronic tardiness, talking in class, and excessive loitering around the girls locker room.” Lancer caught the teen with a mischievous smirk and sent him a glare.

The teacher sighed and closed the file. “But no severe mischief until today, so tell me…WHY DID YOU THREE CONSPIRE TO DESTROY THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA!”

Danielle jumped to their defense before Danny could. “Dash started it! He threw—“

“Four touchdown passes in the last game and is thereby exempt from scorn,” Lancer said with an exasperated look. At least he had the courtesy of looking slightly disapproving of the blatant favoritism. “You three, however, are not,” the balding teacher said as he stood up from his desk. “I will map out your punishment when I return. Mr. Baxter, guard the door.”

Dash smirked at the three teens before slamming the door behind him. He leaned his back on the door, giving them a spectacular view of his stupid letterman jacket through the small window in the door.

Danny turned to his sister with a baffled expression. “What the heck Danielle? You could have gotten us in even more trouble with your little stunt in the hall!” Danny hissed.

“Whatever, it doesn't matter now. We have to go find Sam,” she said brushing him off.

“Yeah, like right now!” Tucker added. “For some reason, I kinda feel like…it was my fault she got kidnapped.”

“Oh, gee, I wonder why that could possibly be?” Danielle deadpanned.

“Alright, alright, we can play the blame game later,” Danny said making a mediating gesture. “How are we going to find her?”

“How about the security cameras around school?” Danielle said dryly, jabbing a thumb at the desk with the monitor showing the security feed.

“Oh, right, but wait a sec, doesn't this present a future problem? The cameras caught everything that happened with the ghost and me!” Danny said.

Tucker waved a flippant hand. “Don’t worry about it. Just look and see where that thing took Sam.”

The twins shared a look then shrugged it off.

“Alright then,” Danny said leaning closer to the computer. “Look! A meat trail! And it looks like it leads down into the basement.”

“Okay, now we can deal with the whole evidence thing,” Tucker said cracking his knuckles.

He walked up to the computer like a doctor would approach his patient. He pulled out his PDA (an ancient piece of technology by today’s standards, but one that Tucker refused to get rid of due to sentimental value) and plugged it into the computer. After a few minutes of tapping, the blue screen of death appeared on the monitor. Satisfied with his grim work, Tucker unplugged his PDA and turned to the twins, “Welp, that’s done.”

“What did you do?” Danny asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I uploaded a virus that wiped out the entire hard drive. I’m pretty sure the security runs on an isolated system, so it probably wont effect the rest of the school’s computers,” Tucker said looking smug. “Also, the security system should be down for at least the rest of the day.”

“So you just casually have a virus on your PDA incase something like this arose?” Danielle said.

Tucker waved a hand. “I just developed the virus on my computer for fun. I never actually thought I’d get to use it.”

“Okay, anyway, now that that’s taken care of, lets go,” Danny said.

He transformed back into his ghost form and grabbed onto his sister and best friend then allowed himself to sink through the floor down into the basement.

* * *

 

Maddie smiled at the somewhat harried looking receptionist at the front desk. “Hello, I'm Maddie Fenton, and this is my husband, Jack,” she said gesturing at her husband who was completely distracted, alternating from looking warily at the Fenton Finder to looking warily around the mostly empty halls. “We'd like to take our son and daughter, Danielle and Danny Fenton out for lunch if that's alright.”

At the mention of the twins the receptionist’s face seemed to tighten a little. “Danny and Danielle Fenton?” she said as if a little in disbelief.

Maddie answered with a short ‘yes’.

“Uh, just wait right here please,” the receptionist said, and scurried off.

Maddie frowned, finding something odd about the receptionist’s behavior, but brushed it off. The receptionist came back with a balding man Maddie vaguely remembered as the vice principal from the open house the school had at the beginning of the school year. He looked even more strained and over worked than the receptionist.

“Mrs. Fenton, Mr. Fenton, what an interesting coincidence that you decided to come here now at a time like this,” Mr. Lancer said.

Maddie raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?” she asked.

“How about we just go to my office and your children can explain that for you,” the vice principal said.

Maddie glanced back at Jack who had finally clued into the situation. He looked just as confused as Maddie felt.

Despite their befuddlement, they allowed Mr. Lancer to lead them to his office where another student was leaning against the door.

“Thank you, Mr. Baxter,” Mr. Lancer said and the young man moved aside.

They entered the room and Maddie’s confusion only deepened when they found that no one else was in there.

“The Count of Monte Cristo!” Mr. Lancer cried, and slapped a hand to his forehead. Maddie was briefly distracted by the fact that the teacher had just used a book title as an exclamation.

“Mr. Lancer, where are our children?” she said turning to the vice principal. “And what exactly is going on?”

* * *

 

While the basement was mostly for storage of things like old desks and chairs, there was a separate room that acted as a second pantry for the school cafeteria. Inside that there was a ridiculously large refrigerator that housed fresh fruits and vegetables, but the only thing Tucker was interested in were the large crates labeled “meat”.

“Sweet mother of mutton! I’ve dreamed of it, but I never thought I’d live to see it!” Tucker said as he ran up to a large crate of meat.

“How is it that we’re the ones with ghost powers and you’re the weird kid?” Danny said dryly.

“He’s taking theatre, remember,” Danielle stated.

“Right, right, that explains it,” Danny said nodding.

A deranged cackle suddenly pierced the air, reminding them why they were down there in the first place. They followed the direction the laugh came from, turning a corner to see the ghost hovering over Sam who was trapped in a pile of meat.

“We don’t need meat. That’s a fact!” Sam said.

“SILENCE!” the ghost shouted. “You need discipline, manners, respect! You know where that comes from? MEAT!” The ghost then asked in her former grandmotherly voice, “Chicken or fish?”

“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Danny said turning back to his cohorts. “I’ll take care of the ghost while you two get Sam out of that pile of meat.”

The three teens then headed for the ghost and Sam. Danny barreled into the ghost fists first, successfully sending it flying away from Sam, while Tucker and Danielle reached her.

“Don’t worry, Sam! I’ll free you!” Tucker exclaimed as he began cutting into a steak with a fork and knife he somehow produced out of thin air.

Danielle slapped the utensils out of his hand. “Don’t be an idiot! Just help me get this stuff off her!”

“Yes, getting the meat off her would be really nice,” Sam said looking down at the meat with a disgusted expression.

Danny tried to continue his attack on the lunch lady ghost, going in for a kick, but failing when she easily caught him by the ankle.

“You see! This is why you need meat! You’re skin and bones!” she yelled as she threw him clear across the room.

Danny turned intangible just in time to miss slamming into the wall. He flew back through, ready to meet the ghost again only to quickly dodge some shish kababs she had summoned. Frustrated, the ghost growled and summoned all of the meat in the room to her, effectively freeing Sam, but also making her meat suit three times larger than it previously was.

Danny ducked and weaved as the ghost grabbed for him, but was ultimately too slow in the end and was smacked into the ceiling—or rather through the ceiling, seeing as he became intangible just in time.

He sailed through the ceiling into the halls of the school above. He was just about to fly back through the floor to continue fighting the monster, when he heard a startlingly familiar voice.

“What on earth do you mean you don't know? They couldn't have vanished into thin air!” his mother said raising her voice into a concerned pitch.

Oh, no, his parents where there! Why were they there?! Getting distracted, he quickly flew in the direction he heard his mother's voice, but made sure to keep his distance and to stay invisible. His parents stood outside of Mr. Lancer’s office with the baffled teacher.

“I don't know how your children and their friend escaped, but they were already in trouble for nearly destroying the cafeteria!” the teacher diverted. “I'll just have to add this to the list.”

Danny's attention shifted when his eyes caught sight of something on his dad’s belt. It was the Fenton Thermos. Danny wasn't thinking of the questionable functionality of the device right then and there. He only remembered that the thing was supposed to catch ghosts. He quickly flew forward and phased the thing off the holster on his dad’s belt and flew back into the basement.

* * *

 

Jack felt a weight lift from his hip at the same time as the Fenton Finder beeped in his hands, signaling that there was a ghost in dangerously close proximity.

So overwhelmed and excited, Jack shouted, “GHOST!”

The argument between Mr. Lancer and Maddie instantly stopped and they both turned towards him with varying degrees of surprise.

“A ghost! It just pinged on the Fenton Finder, and,” he looked down to the empty holster on his hip where the Fenton Thermos should have been, “it stole the Fenton Thermos!”

“What? Let me see that thing!” Maddie said, gesturing towards the device in his hands. Jack complied, handing her the Fenton Finder.

She messed with the settings until the thing said, “There are three ghosts directly below your position.”

“The basement!” Jack exclaimed. “Of course!” He turned to the bewildered looking teacher. “Where's the door to the basement?”

“I-I can't tell you that! Only employees are allowed into the basement!” Mr. Lancer stuttered out.

“It doesn't matter,” Maddie said as she began flipping through the settings again. “We can just follow their ectotrail in turn-by-turn mode. Let's go!”

They eagerly ran off in the direction the device pointed them in, ignoring Mr. Lancer’s shocked cry for them to come back.

* * *

 

Danny froze momentarily in horror when he saw that the ghost had transformed into some meat slug that might have been just horrifying enough to make H.P. Lovecraft uncomfortable—and it was chasing his friends and sister.

In a spur of the moment reaction, Danny flew forward, grabbing hold of Sam and Tucker. “Ellie, grab on!” He shouted at his twin before he flew up through the wall and out of the basement.

Danny crashed into the grass, spilling Sam, Tucker, and Danielle. Groaning, Danny rolled over onto his stomach. He was about to let himself give out when he spotted the Fenton Thermos gleaming in the grass.

Somehow finding new vigor, Danny pulled himself to his hands and knees and grabbed for the thermos. He forced himself to his feet only wobbling a little.

“Danny, are you okay?” Danielle asked looking concerned. “That had to be a lot of work.”

“I'm fine,” he lied. “Just go. I need to finish this. That thing is still in there.”

Danielle's cry of protest was cut off as Danny flew back into the basement.

* * *

 

Maddie skidded to a halt when the machine suddenly said, “One of the ghosts has changed positions. Would you like to pursue or continue on your current course?”

Maddie turned to Jack and he said, “We go for the bigger prize.”

Mr. Lancer again yelled down the adjacent hallway for them to come back, sounding slightly out of breath, as if he was trying to catch up to them. So much for not having the cops called on them, Maddie thought.

They quickly resumed their chase.

* * *

 

Danny looked around the dim basement. There was no sign of the Lunch Lady. “Hey, ghost, I'm here!” he yelled.

There was only a second after his breath fogged before a body slammed into him. Danny crashed into the opposite wall, phasing halfway through it. Grunting, he pulled himself back through the wall, to meet the grinning face of the Lunch Lady. She had abandoned her meat suit, perhaps because she was loosing energy like he was. He hoped that was it.

“Did you come back for seconds?” the ghost sneered.

“For your cooking? I don't think so,” Danny said with a chuckle. He had no idea how good the ghost’s cooking was, he just knew for sure that a comment like that would piss her off.

And it did. The ghost roared and threw a fist. Danny just managed to dodge out of the way. The ghost snorted in anger and summoned some of the discarded meat lying around in piles. She threw it in a wave at him. He didn't manage to turn intangible in time, and was once again slammed into the wall, the piles of meat pinning him there. Danny felt all the air rush out of his lungs, and stars danced before his eyes. The cold receded back into a point into his chest and he realized he had turned back into his human form. Wonderful, that was just what he needed right then.

The Lunch Lady appeared right in front of him, her face inches from his. “You're weak, you need discipline! You know where you get that from? MEAT!”

Danny realized that he he had managed to keep a hold of the Fenton Thermos even through the last few moments of pummeling. He phased his hand through the meat holding him in place, and clicked the ‘on’ button.

When nothing happened he looked down and saw that there wasn't a single flicker of life coming from the thermos. “Oh, come on!” Danny whined.

The Lunch Lady looked down, as well. “Soup isn't on today's menu!” she said and smacked the thermos out of Danny's hand.

“Hey!” Danny exclaimed as he watched the thermos roll away.

Somehow finding it within himself, he forced himself to change back into his ghost form and phased through the meat. The Lunch Lady gave a noise of surprise when he flew right past her for the thermos.

Danny grabbed the device and turned it over, looking for some reason why it wouldn't work. He nearly slapped himself when he realized the cap was still on. He quickly unscrewed it but before he could turn around and aim it, the Lunch Lady had grabbed him around the throat and pinned him to the floor.

“I said soup’s not on the menu!” she screamed.

She lifted him up and threw him like a rag doll across the room. He smacked painfully against the brick wall of the cellar, lacking the power to phase through.

She came at him like a freight train, and he only just moved out of the way of her before getting shoulder checked into the next century. She slammed into the wall and he flew out of her reach, phasing through a couple racks of food to get as far away from her as he could. She quickly came after him however. She phased through a rack, hands outstretched towards him and teeth bared, looking for all the world like some terrible character from a horror movie.

In the split second he had before she reached him, he tried the thermos again and again it stayed inert. This time it was on his parents shoddy craftsmanship, not his forgetfulness.

The ghost barreled into him into another rack of food, nocking it over and starting a domino effect of shelves. They finally met the other wall and Danny took the brunt of the force. He would have cried out, but the ghost had its hands wrapped around his throat again.

His vision began to narrow and pixilated due to lack of oxygen, he tried clicking the button again desperately. In some sort of adrenaline driven epiphany, he wondered if maybe some sort of jump start would work. He focused energy into his hand that he hoped traveled into the thermos. He clicked the button again and a blue light shot out of the end of the thermos aimed for the ghost’s midsection. The Lunch Lady only had a second to look down in shock before she was pulled screaming into the thermos.

Danny dropped to the ground, crumpling into a heap with a grunt. He forced himself to his hands and knees before shakily taking to his feet. Blue rings appeared around his waist and transformed him back into his human form involuntarily for only about the third stupid time that day. Oh well, the danger was past, what did he need his ghost form for now anyway?

He cursed quietly when the thermos slipped from his fingers and rolled under an overturned shelf.

Danny suddenly heard footsteps pounding on the concrete floor fast approaching him. He tried to straighten, but he couldn't run if he wanted to. He was just doing good by staying conscious and upright.

Suddenly his mother's worried face was in his line of vision. She was cupping his face.

“Honey? Are you okay? Why on earth are you down here?” Her voice sounded weird to his ears, like he was underwater.

“Mom? Wh-what’re you doing here?” he slurred. He could hardly hear her answer from the ringing in his ears. Something about a ghost?

It was all suddenly too much to take, and he felt himself fall forward into his mother's arms before sinking into blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get into the cannon episodes later, taking some time for Danny to get a little more used to his powers first, but I got impatient so here we are. As you can see, I'm only going to use cannon episodes as a rough outline of future chapters, only borrowing some major plot points and a little dialogue. I hope that doesn't bother anyone. Anyway, I hope to update at least within the next month or two. I'll see you all then!


	9. Suspicious Behavior

Danny slowly began to regain consciousness. He soon became aware of the way his muscles ached and gave a soft groan. Without opening his eyes, he raised a hand to scrub his face and felt a slight tug at his arm, almost like something was pulling at his skin.

“Danny?” Danielle’s voice said from beside him.

He finally pealed open his eyes. When a plain white tiled ceiling met his gaze, he realized with a start that he wasn't in his room. This was like the second time in only a few months that he found himself waking up in an alien place. He hoped it wouldn't become a trend.

He shot up and looked around. He was surrounded by the quintessential hospital equipment, heart monitor, IV stand, and bland modern art on the walls. He felt the tugging again as he moved around more and raised his arm to see an IV in the inside of his elbow.

“Yay, you’re awake,” Danielle deadpanned. She was seated to the left of is hospital bed.

“Why am I in the hospital?” he asked.

“Hold on, I need to text Sam and Tucker and tell them you're finally awake,” she said.

Danny gave her an annoyed look, and, not waiting for her to finish her text, he asked. “How long have I been out? Also, where is everyone?”

Danielle’s only response was to hold up a finger for him to wait. Danny huffed and sat back, crossing his arms like a pouty child.

His twin finally responded with, “Four days.”

Danny frowned. “What?”

“You've been out for four days,” she managed to say with a completely straight face.

Danny bolted upright. “Four days?!” The heart monitor’s beeps sped up. “I've been out for four days?!”

“Nah, I'm just kidding. You've only been out for a few hours,” Danielle answered with a smirk. “Tucker told me to tell you that.”

Danny huffed and ran a hand over his face. “Text him back and tell him he's an ass—and so are you. You never answered my other questions.”

Danielle rolled her eyes. “Demanding, much?” she muttered.

“Danielle!” Danny said incredulously.

“Alright fine. You fainted like a ninny in front Mom and Dad, so of course they freaked out and brought you here,” Danielle answered. “Right now, they're in the cafeteria and Jazz went to the bathroom. This is the first time I've gotten you alone. I was starting to worry that we wouldn't be able to make up a cover story before you had to talk to someone else.”

Danny frowned. “Mom and Dad? They were in the basement?”

“You don't remember?” she said with a frown.

“It was getting all kinda fuzzy towards the end, you know, before I fainted like a ninny,” Danny said dryly.

“Whatever,” his twin said, rolling her eyes. “Apparently, they went down there when they got a ping on their new invention—the one they showed us this morning, but I don't think they saw anything, otherwise they would have taken you to the lab. By the way, what happened to the ghost?”

Danny rubbed a hand over his face. Like he said, the last few minutes of the fight with the ghost was mostly a blur because he was already crashing, but he was pretty sure he had somehow gotten the Fenton Thermos to work. “I think I got the thermos to work, but I dropped it and it rolled under something.”

“Okay, that's good, at least that's one less thing to worry about,” Danielle said.

“Speaking of things to worry about, do you know if the doctors have found anything…weird about me?” Danny asked cautiously.

Danielle shook her head. “I don't think so. Just that your temperature was a little lower than average and that your blood pressure had bottomed out, which is actually why they think you passed out. Dr. Matthews, the doctor overseeing you, is withholding a solid diagnosis, but kinda thinks that you might have had a panic attack and went into some kind of…dissociative fudge state ‘cause they can't really find anything else wrong with you.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean they couldn't find anything wrong with me? The Lunch Lady treated me like a rag doll and nearly strangled me.”

Danielle gave him an unreadable look and shrugged. “You didn't even have any bruises.”

Danny swallowed a little thickly. He didn't know how to feel about that. While it was cool and all to have X-Men powers, it only made him feel more like a freak. Was he even human anymore?

He suddenly remembered the large scar on his back. He didn't like thinking about it and certainly didn't like looking at it (though he didn't really get much of a chance to since it was on his back), but one day last week he had decided to look at it again out of some morbid curiosity and it had been gone like it had never existed in the first place.

Danny leaned back in the bed, tilting his head back to stare sightlessly up at the ceiling. He let out a long breath.

“What about the cover story thing?” he asked, sounding tired.

“Oh, yeah, right, we need one,” Danielle said, stating the obvious.

“You don't say,” Danny deadpanned. “This is just great. I'm a terrible liar.”

“Well, we can piggy back on what the doctor thinks,” Danielle suggested. “Maybe you could say you freaked out because you were afraid of getting in trouble.”

Danny pursed his lips. “Sounds pretty flimsy, sis. Also, that does make me sound like a ninny.”

“What are you talking about! Having a panic attack is nothing to be ashamed of or to laugh about!” Danielle scolded, putting her hands on her hips dramatically.

Danny narrowed his eyes at her. “You've been spending too much time around Jazz.”

As if summoned by her name, Jazz suddenly walked in. She paused for a second in the door, startled to see Danny was awake, then, without a word, rushed forward and enveloped him in a hug. “We were so worried about you,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

Danny gently pushed her away. “It's okay. I'm fine.”

“What happened? Why were you down in the school basement of all places?” Jazz asked, her eyes looking a little misty.

Danny fidgeted. “I, um, I guess I ran down there by accident. I-I don't know it was kinda blurry. I might have panicked when I found out we were going to get into trouble for the food fight in the cafeteria.”

Jazz pursed her lips in an unsure expression. “I know I should be mad at you for pretty much destroying the cafeteria, but I'm just glad you're okay.”

She straightened, pulling out the wrinkles in her shirt. “I should probably go get Mom and Dad and tell them you're awake,” she continued.

Once Jazz had left the room, Danny sighed and put a hand over his face. “Is this what it's going to be like from now on?” he muttered.

“How what's going to be like?” Danielle asked.

“Lying—to everyone. I'm not even good at lying,” he said, his hand still covering his face.

Danielle put a hand on his shoulder. “Don't worry, it'll get easier.”

Danny made a face and turned to her. “What? Lying?”

She nodded her head innocently. “Yeah.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, gee, thanks, that makes me feel so much better, sis,” he said, his words dripping with sarcasm.

Danielle smirked and patted his shoulder before withdrawing her hand. “You're welcome, bro.”

* * *

 

“Have you ever had a panic attack before?” Jazz asked as Danny was getting out of the car.

“No,” Danny stressed before shutting the door in her face.

There was a small cry of protest from Danielle. She had already begun to scoot over to exit from his side.

Danny came around the back of his mom’s car only to once again be confronted by Jazz. “This could be a sign of an underlying mental illness, like a panic disorder, or an anxiety disorder, or—”

“Jazz, I'm fine!” he almost shouted.

“Danny, this isn't like you to get to get in trouble at school. Are you sure your telling us the whole truth?” Danny's mom said, joining in the interrogation as she got out of the car as well.

Danny almost rolled his eyes at her. For all he knew she probably thought a ghost had possessed him to wreak havoc on the school’s cafeteria.

“Can we at least get inside before you guys start this again?” Danny whined.

“Danny, this could be serious!” Jack said. He got out of the car and leaned on the top of it. “There could have been a ghos—”

Danny didn't even let his father finish the word ‘ghost’. “I already told you! I didn't see any ghost! I just started the food fight in the cafeteria because I was being a dumbass, not because the devil made me do it!” he practically yelled.

“Language, young man,” Maddie said sternly.

Danny bit his tongue before he said something else he might regret. “Whatever, can you just open the door?” he grumbled.

Maddie sighed and climbed up the steps past Danny. As soon as she disengaged the lock, Danny shoved past her through the door, pointedly ignoring the incredulous look she sent him.

“Danny, what has gotten into you all of a sudden?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Danny said, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “Teen angst? Hormones? Doesn't matter. It's not like you care anyway.”

Danny felt a small prick of guilt at the hurt look she gave him, but it was gone as soon as she said, “Daniel James Fenton, you’re grounded! Go to your room!”

“I’m already going to my room!” he shot back.

“Then go faster!”

Danny growled and stomped the rest of the way to his room. He slammed the door as hard as he could, making the whole house shake.

* * *

 

Danielle watched in bewilderment as her mother stormed into the basement, likely to smash some failed inventions or to furiously work over some other ones to get out her anger. Jack followed timidly behind.

Jazz started to head for the stairs, and Danielle could see it in her eyes that her intent was to go talk to Danny. Catching her older sister’s arm, she said bluntly, “Don't go up there. You'll only make it worse.”

Jazz turned to Danielle, face twisted into a mask of worry. “Did I do this? Maybe if I'd just laid off the questions…”

“No, Jazz, this isn't your fault,” Danielle said. She could see that Jazz didn't believe her. “Well…maybe it is a little, but at least you weren't asking Danny if he was possessed or something.”

Jazz shook her head and let her gaze drop to the floor. “I wish he talked to me like he does to you. He used to…it just seems like recently he's been drifting away from almost everyone.” She looked back up to Danielle, meeting her eyes. “Do you think it has to do with the ghost stuff? Mom and Dad have been on about that nonstop since Christmas. It could drive anyone insane.”

“You're probably right,” Danielle said. She wasn't exactly lying, just sort of tiptoeing around the truth.

Jazz sighed. “I love Mom and Dad, but sometimes they make it really hard for me to like them.”

Danielle gave her a sad smile. “I know what you mean.”

There was a small pause until Jazz asked, “Are you going to go talk to him?”

Danielle glanced upstairs in the direction of her brother's room. “You think I should?” she asked.

“I think someone should.”

Danielle nodded. “Okay, then I will.”

Jazz gave her a halfhearted smile and a nod. “Just tell him when you go up to talk to him that I…I just care about him, and I want to know that he's okay. We all do. Even Mom and Dad in their own messed up way.”

“He already knows that, I'm sure,” Danielle said.

Jazz pursed her lips. “I'm sure he does too, when he's not compromised like this. People tend to forget others care about them when they're emotionally distressed, you know?”

“I guess you're right,” Danielle said, her mouth twisting into mild grimace. “I'll be sure to remind him then.”

Jazz smiled again. This time it almost reached her eyes.

Danielle parted from her sister and climbed the stairs to her twin’s room. She deliberated for a second before knocking on his door. “Go away,” came the muffled reply.

Opening the door a crack and sticking her head through, she saw Danny laying face down in his bed, spreadeagled. He was the picture of defeat.

“It's me, doofus,” she said in a small voice.

Danny's only response was to lift his head and give her a halfhearted glare before plopping his face back down into the pillow.

Danielle walked over and sat down lightly at the foot of his bed. “You know they just care about you, right? Even Mom and Dad in their own weird way.”

“I know,” Danny groaned into the pillow. He said something else that Danielle didn't quite catch.

“What was that?” she asked.

Danny huffed and turned his head. “I said, that's what makes it worse.”

Danielle bit her lip and turned away. “It's not like we haven't lied to them before,” she said quietly.

“This is different, Danielle,” Danny said, sitting up and turning to her. “This isn't like hiding a black eye that Dash gave me. We could have died. Hell, maybe we did in a way.”

Danielle didn't know what to say to that. She knew that they both weren't letting on to just how much the accident had effected them, but she was surprised that Danny was so torn over not telling their parents.

Silence lapsed between them. Finally, Danielle drew in a long breath, letting it out in a slow exhale, and said, “If you want to tell them, fine. I'm not going to try to stop you anymore.”

She tried not to think about how Dan would feel if Danny actually did go to their parents. He'd probably be pissed, but he'd just have to get over it. She couldn't stand seeing her twin hurting like this anymore.

“No…I’m not going to tell them,” he grumbled.

“You don't have to stay silent just because of me. I promise I won't hold it against you, no matter what,” Danielle said earnestly.

Danny sighed and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in odd places. “The truth of the matter is, I'm not sure I'm ready to tell them yet either, especially after what happened today.”

Danielle tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“Now that I think about it, taking out the Lunch Lady felt…good in a way,” Danny said thoughtfully, “like I did something for once in my life that was actually worthwhile. Maybe this is what I'm meant to do.”

Danielle snorted. “You’ve been reading way too many comics,” she said with a smirk.

Danny chuckled and kicked her lightly. “Shut up.”

There was a small pause until Danny suddenly exclaimed, “Oh!” He slapped a hand over his forehead and sat back.

“What is it?”

“That reminds me! The Lunch Lady is still in the Fenton Thermos sitting in the school basement,” he said. “What if someone finds it? We better go get it first.”

Danielle’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean like right now?”

Danny jumped out of his bed. “Yeah, why not?”

Danielle frowned. There was an excitement in her brother’s voice that was in stark contrast with the somber tone he had use just seconds ago. His mood hand seemingly just taken an impossible one-eighty. “Danny are you sure you—”

In a bright flash without any warning he suddenly changed into his ghost form. “Yeah, I'm sure. Now come on!” he said grabbing her hand.

Danielle yelped as he dragged her along, phasing them through his bedroom window.

* * *

 

It was around midnight when their mom finally went to bed. Danny listened at the door to her retreating footsteps down the hall. He waited another half hour before he pulled the Fenton Thermos out from under his bed and started to make his way to the lab.

He tiptoed down the stairs praying that his powers didn't make him trip or fall through the floor. Finally, he stood in front of the closed doors of the portal, wondering how he was going to get the Lunch Lady into the portal without causing himself too much injury. Maybe pressing eject would be enough to fling her back into the Ghost Zone and he could race to the close door button before she could get out again.

Danny drew in a deep breath. “Okay,” he muttered to himself.

He went up to the panel beside the portal. His hand hovered over the “open” button a second before he mustered enough courage to go through with the action. As the doors rolled open, he powered up in case anything went wrong, like say if some ectopuses were taking a stroll near the portal and decided they were feeling adventurous and went through it.

Danny popped the cap off the thermos and aimed the opening at the portal. As soon as he pressed eject, a banshee scream and a bright beam of light burst from the muzzle and shot into the portal, only becoming slightly muffled as it passed the “event horizon”. Danny rushed for the close button all the while the screams steadily getting louder again, signaling that the Lunch Lady was hurrying to get back through the portal. Danny slammed his hand into the button and the doors began to roll close at an agonizingly slow pace. They finally shut with a soft thud. Only another second later another thud sounded at the doors. Danny gave a soft chuckle as an image of the Lunch Lady flattened against the doors like a Loony Toons character came to mind. Unfortunately, the levity didn't do much to lessen the tremble in his hands.

He changed back into his human form and gave himself a second to breath before he set himself on his second task. He looked around the lab for the Fenton Finder and grabbed it off one of the workbenches when he found it. The schematics for it were right next to it, saving him a few minutes of having to look for it, as well.

He hoped Mom and Dad wouldn't notice it missing, or if they did, that they would think it was just another thing they had accidentally misplaced.

* * *

 

“I just don’t know where it could have gone!” Maddie said over the breakfast table. “I’ve scoured the lab, looking in every nook and cranny! It’s like it just up and disappeared!”

“Maybe it was a ghost!” Jack said pounding his fist on the table.

The twins shared a glance.

Maddie made a helpless gesture. “Maybe, but unlikely. I doubt a ghost would understand what it was—and we always keep the portal doors closed!”

“Maybe it was the grimlins,” Danielle said with a snicker.

Their mom gave her an unamused look. “That’s not funny.”

“You know, I’m not surprised you lost something,” Jazz piped up. “With the state of disarray you always keep the lab in, it's no wonder something went missing.”

“But I was sure I left in on the bench up against the northern wall—or was it the southern wall?” Maddie said frowning at the table.

“You see?” Jazz said smugly. For once Danny was grateful Jazz was being a know-it-all.

“I-I don't know,” their mother said, leaning her head into her hand. “It just seems so strange because even the schematics are missing.”

“Maybe it's not that bad,” Jack said placing his hands on her shoulders. “That thing didn't seemed to really work anyway.”

Maddie let out a deep sigh. “I still don’t want to give up the search. We could still salvage the materials even if it didn’t work.”

“Great,” Jazz said without any real enthusiasm. “You do that and we’ll be getting to school.” She glanced at the twins. “Go finish getting ready.”

* * *

 

Most of the day had gone by without being called to the office. This only seemed to add to the already high stress levels in the group. It would have been merciful for Mr. Lancer to have simply called them to the office during the earlier periods, but instead he let them stew. By sixth period they all felt like they were going to explode.

Somehow they had all landed in Mr. Lancer’s sixth period English I class. It was a small school in a small midwestern town, so it wasn't too terribly surprising or unlikely, but it was rather unfortunate in this case.

Surprisingly, Mr. Lancer didn't give them any funny looks or call on them at all. He acted as if it was a normal class period, and the events of yesterday hadn't even happened. It was only until the last five minutes of class that he announced, “I would like for the Fentons and Mr. Foley to stay after the bell rings please.”

Danny felt his stomach drop into his feet and he instinctively hunched his shoulders.

“Uh-oh, Fenturd’s in trouble,” Dash taunted from a few seats back.

“Would you like to join them, Mr. Baxter?” Lancer said with venom Danny hadn't heard the teacher use on the football player before.

“No, sir,” Dash grumbled.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the bell rang. While the rest of the class stormed out, the four friends stayed in their seats.

Mr. Lancer raised an eyebrow. “Miss Manson, I don’t believe I asked you to stay behind.”

“I’m just as much a part of this as they are,” she intoned.

The teacher folded his arms. “Is that so?”

“Yes, I participated in the food fight just as much as they did. I should get detention too.”

“Sam, what are you doing?” Danny hissed.

“No, no, Mr. Fenton, don’t interrupt. Besides we have plenty of time. I don't have a class this period, and I can write you all notes,” Lancer said calmly.

“She really had nothing to do with it. It was all us,” Danny said.

“Danny,” she said, in a voice hardly above a growl, “stop.” He wilted under her intense gaze.

Mr. Lancer looked between all four of them before he spoke again. “I don’t really know what is going on, but I have a feeling it goes much deeper than just the little lunch debacle yesterday. I also get the feeling none of you are going to share with me what this is really about.” He paused as if thinking over his next words carefully. “Since this has already been such a hassle and Mr. Fenton actually had to go to the hospital, I’m going to go easy on you and give you four only one day of detention. Tomorrow after school, report for detention in the library. Mrs. Robinson will be the teacher on duty.”

* * *

 

“So then he—” Danielle paused, looking up when her twin entered her bedroom.

“Danielle, I think your computer’s got some kind of virus. You better do a scan quick,” Danny quipped.

Dan on the other end of the Skype chat raised a finger to the camera.

“Danny, I finally got my Skype set up,” she said excitedly, ignoring his jab. “I was just telling Dan about how you fought a ghost.”

Danny puffed his chest out slightly. “Did you tell him how heroic I was?”

“She told me you fainted like a pussy,” Dan deadpanned.

“I said ninny, not pussy,” Danielle corrected.

“Danielle!” Danny whined. “How could you!”

His twin held her hand to her chest and gave a dramatic gasp. “Would you want me to lie, dear brother? That would be…unthinkable…”

Danny gave her a flat look. He directed his attention to the computer screen where Dan was watching the interaction with a small smirk. “What about you, Dan? Anything interesting?” he asked, managing to make the question sound snide.

Dan sat back in his chair and absently inspected his nails. “Nah, nothing too interesting, though I did almost destroy the fountain yesterday.”

“Mm, great,” Danny muttered.

Danielle groaned and rolled her eyes. “Even miles apart, you two can be catty towards each other.”

Dan looked up from his nails with a frown. “Men don't get ‘catty’ with each other,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“What men? I don't see any men around here?” Danielle snarked.

“Hey!” the two brothers said almost in unison. Danielle chuckled.

She turned her attention back to her twin. “So Danny, what did you come in here for originally?” she asked.

“I-well, I was thinking maybe we should practice the whole…ghost powers thing,” he stuttered. “Mom and Dad left to go take care of errands and the lab is empty. Have you ever actually tried to go ghost?”

Danielle pursed her lips and turned away.

“Of course she has, dipshit,” Dan said.

Danny sent him a glare. “I didn't ask you.”

“I have tried, and I can't,” she said interrupting Dan before he could offer a rebuttal.

“Are you sure?” Danny said, a small part of him disappointed. He didn't know why. Having a ghost half made him feel like a freak, and he certainly wouldn't wish that on his sister.

She nodded. “Yeah. You've said for you it kinda just…happens, but no matter how hard I think about it…nothing.”

“Well, maybe it’ll just take time for you,” Danny tried. “You were hit with a lot less ectoplasm. Maybe it just takes time to…set?”

Danielle gained a thoughtful look. “Maybe….”

“Well, until you get your full ghost side, you can't be in our club,” Dan said.

“What?” Danielle said, rounding on him.

He shrugged lazily. “You can't be in the creepy ghost kid club. Sorry, I don't make the rules,” he said, keeping a straight face, except for the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.


	10. The Kids Aren't Alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is inspired by The Kids Aren't Alright by The Offspring.

Vlad looked up from his phone as Dan entered the kitchen.

“You’re up early. Don’t you have first period free this year?” Vlad commented casually before going back to his phone to read up on the morning news.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Dan muttered as he grabbed the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup.

“Is something troubling you, my boy?” Vlad asked, looking up with a frown.

Dan stopped and glanced at Vlad over his shoulder. After a pause, he simply shrugged and said, “The usual I guess, school, girls, life in general….”

“Anything in specific you want to talk about?” Vlad asked.

Dan was quiet for another moment, before he turned and leaned slightly on the doorframe. “I….” he began to say, but trailed off with a sigh. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

Dan suddenly frowned. “What’s with the sudden interest in me?” he snapped.

Vlad stood up, but staid by the island bar in the kitchen. “Because you’re my son, of course.”

Dan turned away. “Whatever.”

Vlad sighed and straightened his tie, mostly for the need to do something with his hands. “Well, I’m off to the office. Have a good day at school,” Vlad said.

Dan made a noncommittal grunt and walked out of the kitchen.

Vlad watched him leave with a growing frown. He shook his head and pocketed his phone. He nocked back the last bit of his coffee and put the empty mug in the sink. He took his jacket off the rack by the door before going out to his car. He started up the engine and rolled out of the driveway.

Several miles down the road, he came to an intersection, but instead of going down the road he usually went to get to his office, he turned down a small two lane county road that didn’t even take him in the direction of Green Bay.

The scenery around him became increasingly rural as he drove another two miles down the county road until turning off onto a private driveway. Down the driveway a bit, he stopped at a gate that he had to get out and manually unlock and push open.

The dirt driveway snaked and slithered along until it finally came to an end at a modest two story farmhouse. There was still snow piled on the roof, signaling no warmth within. It’s siding was painted a pale blue a few shades lighter than the sky, bleached somewhat from the sun, and pealing in a few places. Overall, it held a feeling of abandonment and vacancy.

Vlad parked the car and pulled the key out of the ignition. He got out and walked up the creaking wood steps of the house. Inside, it looked even more un-lived in than the outside suggested. It was completely unfurnished. There was a thin layer of dust on every surface, and a cobweb or two hung in the corners of the ceiling.

Vlad disregarded his drab surroundings and walked straight to the basement door. The un-oiled hinges creaked as the door opened. Vlad walked down a short flight of stairs before he came to another door. This one was more fortified, more akin to a what you might find on a bank vault rather than the door to a basement in some old nearly abandoned farmhouse.

He put in the pass code and the door unlocked with a quiet clank. On the westward side of the room there used to be a door leading out of the cellar straight to the outside of the house as most cellars did, but it had been filled in long ago and the wall had been fortified. Against the wall that was once open to the elements, was a table covered in various scraps of machinery, that had gone abandoned and had only just been picked up again and brought back into the interest of their creator. The centerpiece of the room however were the large doors in an octagonal frame at the back of the room. It was a ghost portal, nearly identical to the one the Fentons had developed.

* * *

 

Dan turned the dial on his locker, not really looking at the numbers, just preforming the motion through muscle memory. It opened with a squeak of the hinges, and he took out the text book he would need for next class and put the one for his last class back. His movements were automatic, those of a person with a drifting mind, stuck in a reverie.

He flenched violently when he felt another body press against his. He whipped around to see Olivia, a girl in his grade with platinum blond hair, bright green eyes, and most importantly, a great rack.

She pouted almost like he had offended her. “What’s wrong Dan?” she asked.

He let out a slow breath and smiled. “Nothing now that you’re here,” he said, pulling her towards him.

She rolled her eyes playfully. “That was really corny.”

“Yeah, and that’s what you love about me,” he said, planting a quick kiss on her lips.

She gave him a sly smile. “That’s not the only thing I love about you.”

A loud groan came from their left. A girl with an orange streak in her otherwise jet black hair leaned against the lockers watching the couple with a disgusted look. “You guys know there’s no fucking in the halls, right?”

Dan gave her a half hearted glare before turning back to Olivia. “I’ll see you at lunch, babe.” He gave her another kiss, making a point of drawing it out, before separating to let his girlfriend go on her way.

As the clack of Olivia’s heels faded down the hall, he turned to the other girl. “What the fuck do you want, Karen?”

“Just to ruin your day,” she said with a smirk. “And also to ask if you can drive me and Pricilla home. My car’s in the shop.”

“Why can’t Renata?” he asked.

“Mom has to pick up my dad from jail,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

Dan’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah. She could have picked me and my sister up and immediately gone to the jail to pick up my dad, but us all being in the same car together is a really, really bad idea.”

“Do I even want to ask what he did this time?” Dan muttered, closing his locker door.

“Possession,” she answered. “Mom had to bail him out.”

She let out a harsh sigh. “It’s fucking stupid. She divorced him years ago, but he still claws his way back into our lives some how or another.”

That divorce was actually how Dan and Karen became friends. Renata had to bring her kids, Karen and her younger sister, Pricilla, to work at the mansion because she had no one else to leave them with. Vlad permitted it, only if they behaved. They did, and eventually it became a regular thing.

Dan hummed. “Bummer.”

She turned to him with a glare. “That’s all you have to say? ‘Bummer’?”

“You know what I mean,” he said. “I get it, okay? From one child of divorce to another, that really sucks.”

She sighed. “Whatever, are you going to give me a ride or not?”

“Of course.”

Karen cracked a small smile. “Thanks.”

“Hey, do you have anything else going on this afternoon?” he asked with the intent of inviting her over.

He already had plans to go hang out with Alex and the Pack, but they were a bunch of sociopaths. He’d ditch them for Karen any day.

The Pack, as Dan had so lovingly nicknamed them, were a group of senior guys about ten times wilder than Dan. Alex was the leader of the pack and everyone else was just his bitch. He kept them on loose leashes, though, letting them all do some fucking crazy shit just about whenever they felt like it, even though he could get them to straighten out with just a snap of his fingers. Dan for the most part was an outsider. He'd stepped in on some occasions, like when they had ripped into this one quiet kid nonstop for an entire semester, but mostly he just left the dogs to Alex.

“I was going to go out with Liz, but thanks anyway,” she said, already guessing his intent.

Dan frowned. “Wait, doesn't your girlfriend have a car?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why didn’t you just ask her to drive you home if you were planning to go out with her anyway?”

She looked away. “‘Cause then I’d have to tell her about my whole…situation with my dad,” she muttered. “Or I'd have to make up some story and lie to her. I'd rather not do either of those things.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t told her about this? You haven't told your girlfriend anything about your home life?”

She shot him a glare. “She knows my parents are divorced, dumb-ass. I just haven't told her about how my dad is. And don't go judging me on how I go about my relationship. I bet you haven't told Olivia about your family situation.”

Dan scoffed. “Of course not.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “She’s just the date of the week. She doesn't matter. But Liz isn't like that for you. You really care about her.”

Karen looked away, worrying her bottom lip. “It’s just…embarrassing.”

“Of course it is, but isn't that what love is? Making yourself vulnerable to someone else?”

She snorted. “How the fuck would you know?”

Dan shrugged. “I don't know. I think I read that in a book once, maybe?”

Karen rolled her eyes. She side stepped him and started walking down the hall. “See you in pre-cal, dork,” she threw over her shoulder.

* * *

 

Dan blew off Alex and his pack of dogs, anyway. Honestly, just about anything was more important than spending time with those morons.

He drove to a small wooded area near his house. He parked his car on the side of the small county road and got out. He looked around, making sure no one was around and then transformed.

He sighed, almost relieved to be back in his ghost form. Strangely, it was beginning to feel more normal than being human.

He flew into the grove of barren trees and was soon hidden from any prying eyes.

Sometimes when he went out there he would test his powers in a very loud and destructive way, others he would simply lounge in mid air, gazing up at the sky between the bare tree branches. It depended on his mood. At the moment, he wasn't feeling much of anything, so he wasn't doing much of anything.

At one point he thought he heard footsteps and turned invisible. A moment later a deer crept into view. He stayed invisible, simply watching it as it approached him. When it was about a meter away, it suddenly stopped and raised its head. It starred right at him where he floated in the air for a second before turning tail and running back into the trees.

“Huh, interesting,” Dan mused to himself as he became visible again. Maybe that whole animals can sense ghosts trope had some merit.

In fact, animals didn't seem to like him at all in his ghost form. Birds didn't chirp around him and dogs when crazy. His cat didn't seem to care, but that could be just that she knew him. He was pretty sure that just about any other animal would freak out around him. It almost excited him that he held such a presence.

He summoned an ectoblast, as he had named it, and juggled it between his hands just so they had something to do. It was just a softball sized orb of red energy, not even hot or cold, just bright and inert—until he threw it.

He flung it at a small tree that was little more than a sapling. The blast exploded on impact, transforming into a red sunburst and throwing splinters all over the snowy ground. The now severed crown of the tree fell with a soft crash.

He smirked and threw another ectoblast at the ground, making a small crater, letting the leaves and dirt show underneath the few feet of snow that remained after the last storm.

He had learned the knew power a few weeks ago on accident—an accident that had almost destroyed the fountain in the garden. ectoblasts weren't the only thing he could make. About a week after the fountain incident when he had started practicing in the woods, he found out that he could also make fire balls. He had nearly started a forest fire. It seemed to be a kind of trend that he always found some new power in the worst possible way.

He threw another ectoblast, trying to hit the same spot on the ground he had before, when the blast suddenly froze in midair. It turned form red to green and slowly expanded until it was a vertical disk in the air.

Dan’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open. A few days after New Years, and right before school started again, Danielle had sent him some footage she had shot with her phone camera of the portals that had begun popping up around town. It looked remarkably like what he was staring at right then.

He approached it slowly, stretching out a hand towards it. His fingers where only just an inch away from the swirling vortex when it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

Dan growled and summoned another ectoblast. It exploded against another tree. He frowned. Not what he wanted.

Dan drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. How did he do it? He had no fucking clue. The fact that he couldn't instantly recreate it was strange. All he had to do with both ectoblasts and fireballs was think about making them and that was it. It seemed like this was a little different.

Maybe it was about energy? He had to put more energy into it. Fireballs seemed to use a little more energy ectoblasts, so this, as the next logical step, would use even more energy.

He summoned a blast and threw it as he opened his eyes. Instead of creating another portal or even another ectoblast, he had accidentally created a more vigorous that usual fireball. Steam from melting snow mingled with the gray smoke of several trees that had been unlucky enough to be caught in the blast.

Dan cursed a blue streak as he flew back to his car. He pulled out a fire extinguisher he had bought for this exact fucking occasion from his trunk and flew back to the quickly spreading flames.

* * *

 

It was another few hours before he finally came home. As he pulled up, he noticed that Vlad’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Dan reasoned that he must have pulled it into the garage.

He walked through the foyer and down the hall, peeking into Vlad’s study. It was empty. He was either not home from the office, which was almost ridiculous, or he had already gone up to bed. Vlad often worked late into the night, but in the comfort of his own home. In fact, he usually only went in to his main office only once a week. He seemed to be going in almost every day now.

Dan frowned and backed away from the room, closing the door with a quiet click.

Suddenly a heat blossomed in his chest and red smoke billowed from his nose. Instead of the surprise and panic he had felt the first time it had happened, a sense of annoyance filled its place.

He turned and glared around the hall. “I know you’re there,” he said, raising his voice slightly.

The Dairy King became visible and gave a cheerful wave as if he wasn’t on the receiving end of a cold glare right then. “If you’re looking for your dad, he’s still not home,” the ghost said helpfully.

Dan crossed his arms. “Then were is he?”

The ghost fiddled with the cartoonish ice-cream cone ornament on the top of his cepter. “Oh, well, I imagine he’s still at the office. You know how hard he works.”

Dan scoffed. “Right.”

He leaned against the wall and his expression became thoughtful. “You know, I’ve been wondering, does my dad know about you?”

The Dairy King started. “Know about me? Of course not! Only ghosts can know about each other. Now some ghosts can get away with revealing themselves if they do it carefully, but that’s only for the spooks. They can’t formally go up to a person and shake their hand and say they’re a ghost, doncha' know!”

Dan narrowed his eyes at the way the ghost kept talking, almost babbling as if to cover for something, but he decided to humor the ghost. “Why can’t they reveal themselves? What’s stopping them from making it known to the world that ghosts are real?”

“Well, they’d get in trouble. There are authorities, like the Observants, that make sure ghosts don’t cause too much trouble for humans,” the ghost explained. “We don’t really belong in this plane of existence anyway, doncha’ know.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that last time, instead of running off?” Dan asked.

“Oh, well..." the ghost said a little sheepishly, “I didn’t know if it was okay to share with just a half ghost.”

Dan narrowed his eyes again, but again didn’t push the ghost. “Alright then,” he said, abruptly pushing off the wall. “Thank’s for the lesson in Ghost 101.”

He brushed past the pudgy ghost and headed for the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh! I don't like this chapter! It's short and just feels messy, but I felt like we needed to check in on Dan and Vlad and see what they were up to.


End file.
